Electrophysiological Responses to Errors and Feedback in the Process of Action Regulation

The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is believed to be involved in the executive control of actions, such as in monitoring conflicting response demands, detecting errors, and evaluating the emotional significance of events. In this study, participants performed a task in which evaluative feedback was delayed, so that it was irrelevant to immediate response control but retained its emotional value as a performance indicator. We found that a medial frontal feedback-related negativity similar to the error-related negativity (ERN) tracked affective response to the feedback and predicted subsequent performance. Source analysis of the feedback-related negativity and ERN revealed a common dorsomedial ACC source and a rostromedial ACC source specific to the ERN. The oscillatory nature of these sources provides further evidence that the ERN reflects ongoing theta activity generated in the mediofrontal regions. These results suggest that action regulation by the cingulate gyrus may require the entrainment of multiple structures of the Papez corticolimbic circuit.

[1]  J. W. Papez.  A PROPOSED MECHANISM OF EMOTION , 1937 .

[2]  L. Pickenhain,et al.  Hippocampal slow wave activity as a correlate of basic behavioral mechanisms in the rat. , 1967, Progress in brain research.

[3]  Feedback regulation of the hippocampal theta-rhythm. , 1967, Helvetica physiologica et pharmacologica acta.

[4]  D. Crowne,et al.  Some Characteristics and Functional Relations of the Electrical Activity of the Primate Hippocampus and a Hypothesis of Hippocampal Function , 1975 .

[5]  Masataka Watanabe,et al.  Prefrontal and cingulate unit activity during timing behavior in the monkey , 1979, Brain Research.

[6]  V. B. Brooks,et al.  ‘Error’ potentials in limbic cortex (anterior cingulate area 24) of monkeys during motor learning , 1986, Neuroscience Letters.

[7]  Steven Sparenborg,et al.  An Executive Function of the Hippocampus Pathway Selection for Thalamic Neuronal Significance Code , 1986 .

[8]  V B Brooks,et al.  How does the limbic system assist motor learning? A limbic comparator hypothesis. , 1986, Brain, behavior and evolution.

[9]  J. Borst,et al.  Electrical activity of the cingulate cortex. I. Generating mechanisms and relations to behavior , 1987, Brain Research.

[10]  Kara D. Federmeier,et al.  Event-related brain potentials. , 1990 .

[11]  M. Gabriel,et al.  Functions of anterior and posterior cingulate cortex during avoidance learning in rabbits. , 1990, Progress in brain research.

[12]  D. Derryberry,et al.  Right hemisphere sensitivity to feedback , 1990, Neuropsychologia.

[13]  D. Derryberry,et al.  The immediate effects of positive and negative feedback signals. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  Dr. Robert Miller.  Cortico-Hippocampal Interplay and the Representation of Contexts in the Brain , 1991, Studies of Brain Function.

[15]  K. Pribram.  Brain and Perception: Holonomy and Structure in Figural Processing , 1991 .

[16]  J. Hohnsbein,et al.  Effects of crossmodal divided attention on late ERP components. II. Error processing in choice reaction tasks. , 1991, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[17]  D. Tucker.  Spatial sampling of head electrical fields: the geodesic sensor net. , 1993, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[18]  D. Meyer,et al.  A Neural System for Error Detection and Compensation , 1993 .

[19]  M. Posner,et al.  Localization of a Neural System for Error Detection and Compensation , 1994 .

[20]  D. Gaffan.  Memory, action and the corpus striatum: current developments in the memory-habit distinction , 1996 .

[21]  C. Braun,et al.  Event-Related Brain Potentials Following Incorrect Feedback in a Time-Estimation Task: Evidence for a Generic Neural System for Error Detection , 1997, Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.

[22]  Daphne N. Yu,et al.  High-resolution EEG mapping of cortical activation related to working memory: effects of task difficulty, type of processing, and practice. , 1997, Cerebral cortex.

[23]  Michael I. Posner,et al.  Mapping the Cingulate Cortex in Response Selection and Monitoring , 1998, NeuroImage.

[24]  M. Botvinick,et al.  Anterior cingulate cortex, error detection, and the online monitoring of performance. , 1998, Science.

[25]  R. Elliott,et al.  Activation of Different Anterior Cingulate Foci in Association with Hypothesis Testing and Response Selection , 1998, NeuroImage.

[26]  M. Posner,et al.  Executive attention: Conflict, target detection, and cognitive control. , 1998 .

[27]  G. Buzsáki,et al.  Operational Dynamics in the Hippocampal-entorhinal Axis , 1998, Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.

[28]  Phan Luu,et al.  Mood and spatial memory: emotion and right hemisphere contribution to spatial cognition , 1999, Biological Psychology.

[29]  H. Asada,et al.  Frontal midline theta rhythms reflect alternative activation of prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex in humans , 1999, Neuroscience Letters.

[30]  F. Vidal,et al.  Is the ‘error negativity’ specific to errors? , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[31]  D. Tucker,et al.  Medial Frontal Cortex in Action Monitoring , 2000, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[32]  J. Hohnsbein,et al.  ERP components on reaction errors and their functional significance: a tutorial , 2000, Biological Psychology.

[33]  K. Kiehl,et al.  Error processing and the rostral anterior cingulate: an event-related fMRI study. , 2000, Psychophysiology.

[34]  M. Coles,et al.  Performance monitoring in a confusing world: error-related brain activity, judgments of response accuracy, and types of errors. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[35]  M. Posner,et al.  Cognitive and emotional influences in anterior cingulate cortex , 2000, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[36]  Amy Poremba,et al.  Amygdalar Efferents Initiate Auditory Thalamic Discriminative Training-Induced Neuronal Activity , 2001, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[37]  D. Tucker,et al.  Regulating action: alternating activation of midline frontal and motor cortical networks , 2001, Clinical Neurophysiology.

[38]  G. Glover,et al.  Error‐related brain activation during a Go/NoGo response inhibition task , 2001, Human brain mapping.

[39]  Clay B. Holroyd,et al.  Why is there an ERN/Ne on correct trials? Response representations, stimulus-related components, and the theory of error-processing , 2001, Biological Psychology.

[40]  M. Packard,et al.  Affective modulation of multiple memory systems , 2001, Current Opinion in Neurobiology.

[41]  W. Gehring,et al.  Functions of the Medial Frontal Cortex in the Processing of Conflict and Errors , 2001, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[42]  V. Ramachandran,et al.  Encyclopedia of the Human Brain , 2002 .