Department of Neuroscience, University of Padua, Padua, Italy; Perception and Awareness (PandA) Laboratory, Department of Neuroscience, Biomedicine and Movement Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy.
Department of Neuroscience & Padova Neuroscience Center, University of Padua, Padua, Italy; Brain Imaging and Neural Dynamics Research Group, IRCCS, San Camillo Hospital, Venice, Italy.
Cortex. 2020 Dec;133:188-200. doi: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.09.024. Epub 2020 Oct 10.
Cognitive control is particularly challenged when it is necessary to resolve interference and correct our behavior on-the-fly. To do this, it is necessary to inhibit the ongoing wrong action and reprogram a new motor plan as appropriate for the current task. This ability requires a complex interaction between cognitive and motor control. Here, we aimed at shedding light on this interplay. To do this, we administered a spatial version of the Stroop task comprising blocks with different Proportion Congruency (PC) manipulations (i.e., manipulating the percentage of congruent trials at 25%, 50% or 75%), to elicit different cognitive control demands. Moreover, we used two techniques with high-temporal resolution, as we simultaneously recorded EEG and mouse trajectories, that can be considered the real-time kinematic correlates of the ongoing cognitive processing. Specifically, we analyzed the Event Related Potentials (ERPs) locked to the peak deceleration time, which marks the suppression of ongoing erroneous trajectories, and we estimated their neural sources. We found three PC-dependent ERP components engaging distinct neural regions, which showed a reduction of the Stroop effect for low-PC blocks. By using a novel co-registration of mouse-trajectories and EEG, we suggest that the observed components may reflect different mechanisms engaged by reactive cognitive control to resolve the interference, including the suppression of an ongoing but no longer appropriate response, the selection of the new motor plan and its actual updating.
认知控制在需要解决干扰并实时纠正行为时特别具有挑战性。为此，有必要抑制正在进行的错误动作，并根据当前任务适当重新编程新的运动计划。这种能力需要认知和运动控制之间的复杂相互作用。在这里，我们旨在阐明这种相互作用。为此，我们进行了一项包含不同比例一致性（PC）操作的 Stroop 任务的空间版本，以引发不同的认知控制需求（即，以 25%、50%或 75%的比例操纵一致试验的百分比）。此外，我们同时使用了两种具有高时间分辨率的技术，因为我们同时记录了 EEG 和鼠标轨迹，这可以被认为是正在进行的认知处理的实时运动学相关物。具体来说，我们分析了与峰值减速时间锁定的事件相关电位（ERP），该时间标记了对正在进行的错误轨迹的抑制，并估计了它们的神经源。我们发现三个依赖 PC 的 ERP 成分涉及不同的神经区域，对于低 PC 块，这些成分显示出 Stroop 效应的减少。通过使用鼠标轨迹和 EEG 的新颖配准，我们建议观察到的成分可能反映了反应性认知控制为解决干扰而采用的不同机制，包括抑制正在进行但不再适当的反应、选择新的运动计划及其实际更新。
