Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Jul 25:5:17.
doi: 10.3389/fneng.2012.00017. eCollection 2012.

The interplay of prefrontal and sensorimotor cortices during inhibitory control of learned motor behavior

Selina C Wriessnegger  1 , Günther Bauernfeind, Kerstin Schweitzer, Silvia Kober, Christa Neuper, Gernot R Müller-Putz
Affiliations

The interplay of prefrontal and sensorimotor cortices during inhibitory control of learned motor behavior

Selina C Wriessnegger et al. Front Neuroeng. .

Abstract

In the present study inhibitory cortical mechanisms have been investigated during execution and inhibition of learned motor programs by means of multi-channel functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). fNIRS is an emerging non-invasive optical technique for the in vivo assessment of cerebral oxygenation, concretely changes of oxygenated [oxy-Hb], and deoxygenated [deoxy-Hb] hemoglobin. Eleven healthy subjects executed or inhibited previous learned finger and foot movements indicated by a visual cue. The execution of finger/foot movements caused a typical activation pattern namely an increase of [oxy-Hb] and a decrease of [deoxy-Hb] whereas the inhibition of finger/foot movements caused a decrease of [oxy-Hb] and an increase of [deoxy-Hb] in the hand or foot representation area (left or medial somatosensory and primary motor cortex). Additionally an increase of [oxy-Hb] and a decrease of [deoxy-Hb] in the medial area of the anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC) during the inhibition of finger/foot movements were found. The results showed, that inhibition/execution of learned motor programs depends on an interplay of focal increases and decreases of neural activity in prefrontal and sensorimotor areas regardless of the effector. As far as we know, this is the first study investigating inhibitory processes of finger/foot movements by means of multi-channel fNIRS.

Keywords: PFC; anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC); fNIRS; motor cortex; motor learning; response inhibition.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Time course of one experimental trial (finger/foot, execution/inhibition). Left side: timing of finger movement execution/inhibition; Right side: timing of foot movement execution/inhibition.
Figure 2
Figure 2
(A) Custom made console used for foot movement responses positioned in front of a TFT monitor. (B) Modified keyboard for finger movement responses. (C) Schematic illustration of the multi-channel arrays (46 channels, two 3 × 3 grids and one 3 × 5 grid) covering frontal, central and parietal regions. (D) fNIRS cap with mounted optodes. (E) Projections of the fNIRS channel positions on the cortical surface. Positions are overlaid on a MNI-152 compatible canonical brain which is optimized for fNIRS analysis.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Multichannel map illustrating oxygenation levels of ROIs of finger movement execution (A) and inhibition (B). In the middle the mean concentration changes of [oxy-Hb] and [deoxy-Hb] for each channel are illustrated. The shaded bars indicate the activation time of 10 s. Around the channel map the defined ROIs are zoomed.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Multichannel map illustrating oxygenation levels of ROIs of foot movement execution (A) and inhibition (B). In the middle the mean concentration changes of [oxy-Hb] and [deoxy-Hb] for each channel are illustrated. The shaded bars indicate the activation time of 10 s. Around the channel map the defined ROIs are zoomed.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Multichannel ROI map illustrating the mean concentration changes of [oxy-Hb] and [deoxy-Hb] for execution (thick lines) and inhibition (thin lines) together. (A) execution/inhibition of finger movement. (B) execution/inhibition of foot movement. The shaded bars indicate the activation time of 10 s.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Topographic distribution of foot (A) and finger (B) movement activation (left side) and inhibition (right side) at two time points (0–4 and 8–12 s) for [oxy-Hb] and [deoxy-Hb]. An increase of oxy/deoxy-Hb is indicated by cold colors and a decrease by warm colors.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Aron A. R. (2009). Introducing a special issue on stopping action and cognition. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 33, 611–612 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2008.10.003 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Aron A. R., Poldrack R. A. (2006). Cortical and subcortical contributions to stop signal response inhibition: role of the subthalamic nucleus. J. Neurosci. 26, 2424–2433 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4682-05.2006 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boecker M., Buecheler M. M., Schroeter M. L., Gauggel S. (2007). Prefrontal brain activation during stop-signal response inhibition: an event-related functional near-infrared spectroscopy study. Behav. Brain Res. 176, 259–266 10.1016/j.bbr.2006.10.009 - DOI - PubMed
    1. Cai W., Leung H. C. (2009). Cotical activity during manual response inhibition guided by color and orientation cues. Brain Res. 1261, 20–28 10.1016/j.brainres.2008.12.073 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Chen X., Scangos K. W., Stuphorn V. (2010). Supplementary motor area exerts proactive and reactive control of arm movements. J. Neurosci. 30, 14657–14675 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2669-10.2010 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
  NODES
Project 1
twitter 2