Selection and maintenance of stimulus–response rules during preparation and performance of a spatial choice-reaction task

The ability to select an appropriate response among competing alternatives is a fundamental requirement for successful performance of a variety of everyday tasks. Recent research suggests that a frontal-parietal network of brain regions (including dorsal prefrontal, dorsal premotor and superior parietal cortices) mediate response selection for spatial material. Most of this research has used blocked experimental designs. Thus, the frontal-parietal activity reported may be due either to tonic activity across a block or to processing occurring at the trial level. Our current event-related fMRI study investigated response selection at the level of the trial in order to identify possible response selection sub-processes. In the study, participants responded to a visually presented stimulus with either a spatially compatible or incompatible manual response. On some trials, several seconds prior to stimulus onset, a cue indicated which task was to be performed. In this way we could identify separate brain regions for task preparation and task performance, if they exist. Our results showed that the frontal-parietal network for spatial response selection activated both during task preparation as well as during task performance. We found no evidence for preparation specific brain mechanisms in this task. These data suggest that spatial response selection and response preparation processes rely on the same neurocognitive mechanisms.