Auditory Conflict Resolution Correlates with Medial–Lateral Frontal Theta/Alpha Phase Synchrony
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: When multiple persons speak simultaneously, it may be difficult for the listener to direct attention to correct sound objects among conflicting ones. This could occur, for example, in an emergency situation in which one hears conflicting instructions and the loudest, instead of the wisest, voice prevails. Here, we used cortically-constrained oscillatory MEG/EEG estimates to examine how different brain regions, including caudal anterior cingulate (cACC) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC), work together to resolve these kinds of auditory conflicts. During an auditory flanker interference task, subjects were presented with sound patterns consisting of three different voices, from three different directions (45° left, straight ahead, 45° right), sounding out either the letters "A" or "O". They were asked to discriminate which sound was presented centrally and ignore the flanking distracters that were phonetically either congruent (50%) or incongruent (50%) with the target. Our cortical MEG/EEG oscillatory estimates demonstrated a direct relationship between performance and brain activity, showing that efficient conflict resolution, as measured with reduced conflict-induced RT lags, is predicted by theta/alpha phase coupling between cACC and right lateral frontal cortex regions intersecting the right frontal eye fields (FEF) and DLPFC, as well as by increased pre-stimulus gamma (60-110 Hz) power in the left inferior fontal cortex. Notably, cACC connectivity patterns that correlated with behavioral conflict-resolution measures were found during both the pre-stimulus and the pre-response periods. Our data provide evidence that, instead of being only transiently activated upon conflict detection, cACC is involved in sustained engagement of attentional resources required for effective sound object selection performance.
Source: PLoS ONE
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,382
Funders: Massachusetts General Hospital, Centre d'Imagerie BioMédicale, National Institutes of Health, Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, National Center for Research Resources, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Awards: G1220546045, G1360098495, G2227408383, G3171611343, Catagorizing Parallel Human Auditory Pathways by Spatiotemporally Focused TMS, G3549079774, Tools for Large-Scale Platform-Independent MEG Data Analysis, 306 CHANNEL MEG INSTRUMENT, G4759711736, Spatiotemporal Brain Imaging of Human Auditory Cognition, BALZERS 400-K FREEZE-FRACTURE-ETCH SYSTEM, Neuroimaging Analysis Center, G5926609461, Computeserver Structural &Functional Image Analysis, Dynamic imaging of oscillatory brain networks controlling selective attention, G653110949, Spatiotemporal Imaging of Human Visual System Processing, A Siemens MAGNETOTOM Trio 3 Tesla MRI System, G7687018586, Center for Functional Imaging Technologies, Anatomical/functional parcellation of human auditory cortex with 7T MRI, A Storage Area Network for Structural and Functional Image Analysis, G974088082
OpenAlex ID: W2012658104