Institute of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany.
Clin Neurophysiol. 2011 Nov;122(11):2185-94. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2011.03.030. Epub 2011 May 7.
The present study aimed at investigating whether theta activity within medio-frontal cortex (MFC) serves as a marker for increased cognitive control demands such as performance monitoring.
We confronted participants with at least two incompatible sources of information in a Simon task, a flanker task, and a NoGo task to assess whether changes in EEG theta activity correspond to executive control demands across different sources of cognitive interference.
Overall, increases of theta power were to a different extent observed in all interference situations: (1) differences in theta power were largest between successful response inhibition in NoGo events compared to Go responses, (2) incongruent and congruent events in the flanker task differed to a lesser extent, and (3) differences in theta power were smallest comparing incompatible and compatible Simon events. Scalp-topographies and dipole modeling of theta activity pointed to different sources across interference conditions that encompassed various MFC areas within anterior cingulate cortex and (pre-) supplementary motor areas.
Our results indicate that theta power amplitude is sensitive to the recruitment of executive control in interference situations, whereas the MFC sources of theta power varied across different interference situations.
This study shows for the first time theta power enhancement related to the recruitment of cognitive control across different types of conflicts in the stream of information processing.
本研究旨在探究中前额皮质（MFC）中的θ活动是否可作为认知控制需求增加的标志物，例如绩效监测。
我们在 Simon 任务、Flanker 任务和 NoGo 任务中向参与者呈现至少两个不兼容的信息源，以评估 EEG θ活动的变化是否与不同认知干扰源的执行控制需求相对应。
总体而言，在所有干扰情况下，θ功率均不同程度地增加：（1）与 Go 反应相比，在 NoGo 事件中成功抑制反应时的θ功率差异最大；（2）在 Flanker 任务中，不一致和一致的事件差异较小；（3）与相容的 Simon 事件相比，不相容的 Simon 事件的θ功率差异最小。θ活动的头皮地形图和偶极子建模表明，在不同的干扰条件下，存在不同的来源，包括前扣带皮层和（前）辅助运动区中的各种 MFC 区域。
我们的结果表明，θ功率幅度对干扰情况下执行控制的招募敏感，而θ功率的 MFC 来源在不同的干扰情况下有所不同。
本研究首次表明，θ 功率增强与信息处理流中不同类型冲突的认知控制招募有关。
