Weber Simon, Salomoni Sauro E, Hinder Mark R
Sensorimotor Neuroscience and Aging Research Laboratory, School of Psychological Sciences, College of Health and Medicine, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
Eur J Neurosci. 2025 Jul;62(2):e70182. doi: 10.1111/ejn.70182.
The reactive cancellation of real-world actions typically requires complex combinations of both muscle contraction and/or muscle suppression. However, current experimental paradigms solely examine contexts in which action cancellation requires muscle suppression. To provide fundamental insights into inhibitory control mechanisms, we directly compared the latency of action cancellation in novel paradigms where 'stopping' required either suppression of planned activation or reinstatement of ongoing activity. Twenty healthy adults (mean age = 32.2 years) completed novel variants of the stop signal task (SST) in which each trial began with tonic force production to depress two buttons. When a go signal appeared, participants were required to release these buttons. On a subset of trials, a stop signal occurred after a brief delay, and participants were required to cancel the release of one of the buttons. Data in these variants were compared to conventional response-selective SSTs, in which the go signal required bilateral button presses and stop signals necessitated the cancellation of one of these responses. Electromyographic (EMG) recordings allowed a detailed comparison of the characteristics of muscle contraction and suppression (i.e., stopping speed) across these tasks. When physiological evidence of synchronous action cancellation in both hands was observed (supporting recent models of complex stopping), EMG measures of action cancellation speed did not differ (p = 0.863, BF = 8.49) between cancellation of releases and cancellation of presses conditions. This result suggests that response inhibition may broadly characterise reactive control to maintain a current physiological state rather than specific cancellation of a voluntary response.
现实世界中动作的反应性取消通常需要肌肉收缩和/或肌肉抑制的复杂组合。然而，当前的实验范式仅考察动作取消需要肌肉抑制的情境。为了深入了解抑制控制机制，我们在新范式中直接比较了动作取消的潜伏期，在这些范式中，“停止”需要抑制计划中的激活或恢复正在进行的活动。20名健康成年人（平均年龄 = 32.2岁）完成了停止信号任务（SST）的新变体，其中每个试验开始时都要产生持续的力量来按下两个按钮。当出现执行信号时，参与者需要松开这些按钮。在一部分试验中，短暂延迟后会出现停止信号，参与者需要取消松开其中一个按钮的动作。将这些变体中的数据与传统的反应选择SST进行比较，在传统SST中，执行信号需要双侧按钮按压，停止信号需要取消其中一个反应。肌电图（EMG）记录允许对这些任务中肌肉收缩和抑制的特征（即停止速度）进行详细比较。当观察到双手同步动作取消的生理证据时（支持最近关于复杂停止的模型），松开动作取消和按压动作取消条件下的动作取消速度的EMG测量结果没有差异（p = 0.863，BF = 8.49）。这一结果表明，反应抑制可能广泛地表征维持当前生理状态的反应性控制，而不是对自愿反应的特定取消。
