Temporal cascade of frontal, motor and muscle processes underlying human action-stopping

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
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Abstract

Action-stopping is a canonical executive function thought to involve top-down control over the motor system. Here we aimed to validate this stopping system using high temporal resolution methods in humans. We show that, following the requirement to stop, there was an increase of right frontal beta (~13 to 30 Hz) at ~120 ms, likely a proxy of right inferior frontal gyrus; then, at 140 ms, there was a broad skeletomotor suppression, likely reflecting the impact of the subthalamic nucleus on basal ganglia output; then, at ~160 ms, suppression was detected in the muscle, and, finally, the behavioral time of stopping was ~220 ms. This temporal cascade supports a physiological model of action-stopping, and partitions it into subprocesses that are isolable to different nodes and are more precise than the behavioral latency of stopping. Variation in these subprocesses, including at the single-trial level, could better explain individual differences in impulse control.

Data availability

A core element of this paper is a novel method of calculating single-trial stopping speed from EMG. Accordingly, we provide the EMG and behavioral data from 10 participants in study 1, along with analysis scripts, and a brief description of how to execute the scripts (https://osf.io/b2ng5/).

The following data sets were generated

1. Jana S
2. Hannah R
3. Muralidharan V
4. Aron A
(2019) Temporal cascade of frontal, motor and muscle processes underlying human action-stopping
Open Science Framework, b2ng5.

https://osf.io/b2ng5/

Article and author information

Author details

Sumitash Jana

Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, United States

For correspondence
s2jana@ucsd.edu

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3742-3958
Ricci Hannah

Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, United States

For correspondence
rhannah@ucsd.edu

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Vignesh Muralidharan

Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, United States

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.
Adam R Aron

Department of Psychology, University of California, San Diego, San Diego, United States

Competing interests
Adam R Aron, Reviewing editor, eLife.

Funding

National Institutes of Health (NS 106822,DA 026452)

Sumitash Jana
Ricci Hannah
Vignesh Muralidharan
Adam R Aron

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: All human volunteers provided written informed consent prior to their participation. The participants were compensated at $20/hour. The University of California San Diego Institutional Review Board approved all the studies (protocol #171285).

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.