Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Schubertstrasse 42, 01309, Dresden, Germany.
Faculty of Medicine, University Neuropsychology Center, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jul 5;13(1):10903. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-37524-z.
Reward and cognitive control play crucial roles in shaping goal-directed behavior. Yet, the behavioral and neural underpinnings of interactive effects of both processes in driving our actions towards a particular goal have remained rather unclear. Given the importance of inhibitory control, we investigated the effect of reward prospect on the modulatory influence of automatic versus controlled processes during response inhibition. For this, a performance-contingent monetary reward for both correct response selection and response inhibition was added to a Simon NoGo task, which manipulates the relationship of automatic and controlled processes in Go and NoGo trials. A neurophysiological approach was used by combining EEG temporal signal decomposition and source localization methods. Compared to a non-rewarded control group, rewarded participants showed faster response execution, as well as overall lower response selection and inhibition accuracy (shifted speed-accuracy tradeoff). Interestingly, the reward group displayed a larger interference of the interactive effects of automatic versus controlled processes during response inhibition (i.e., a larger Simon NoGo effect), but not during response selection. The reward-specific behavioral effect was mirrored by the P3 amplitude, underlining the importance of stimulus-response association processes in explaining variability in response inhibition performance. The selective reward-induced neurophysiological modulation was associated with lower activation differences in relevant structures spanning the inferior frontal and parietal cortex, as well as higher activation differences in the somatosensory cortex. Taken together, this study highlights relevant neuroanatomical structures underlying selective reward effects on response inhibition and extends previous reports on the possible detrimental effect of reward-triggered performance trade-offs on cognitive control processes.
奖励和认知控制在塑造目标导向行为方面起着至关重要的作用。然而，这两个过程相互作用如何驱动我们的行为朝着特定目标前进的行为和神经基础仍不清楚。鉴于抑制控制的重要性，我们研究了奖励预期对反应抑制过程中自动和受控过程的调节影响。为此，我们在 Simon NoGo 任务中增加了一种基于表现的货币奖励，该任务操纵了 Go 和 NoGo 试验中自动和受控过程的关系。通过结合 EEG 时频信号分解和源定位方法，我们采用了一种神经生理学方法。与非奖励对照组相比，奖励组表现出更快的反应执行速度，以及整体较低的反应选择和抑制准确性（权衡了速度-准确性）。有趣的是，与反应选择相比，奖励组在反应抑制过程中表现出更大的自动与受控过程相互作用的干扰（即更大的 Simon NoGo 效应）。奖励特异性的行为效应在 P3 振幅中得到了反映，强调了刺激-反应关联过程在解释反应抑制性能变化中的重要性。选择性的奖励诱导的神经生理调节与下额和顶叶皮层相关结构中的激活差异降低以及躯体感觉皮层中的激活差异升高有关。总之，这项研究强调了选择性奖励对反应抑制的神经解剖学基础，并扩展了关于奖励触发的性能权衡对认知控制过程可能产生的不利影响的先前报告。
