title: Response inhibition or salience detection in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex?
abstract: This study addresses the question of whether frontal activation in response-inhibition tasks is specifically associated with the suppression of a motor response. An alternative model suggests a role in the detection of behaviorally relevant or salient events. For this purpose, we used functional MRI with an auditory go/no-go paradigm. This paradigm allowed the disentangling of inhibition-related from salience-related effects, which were associated with different frontal regions. Importantly, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex consistently showed sensitivity for salience but not for inhibition requirements. This reflects a more general salience-detection mechanism, which is not specific for response-inhibition tasks.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Section of Experimental Psychopathology and Neurophysiology, University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany. stephan_walther@med.uni-heidelberg.de
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Walther
authors.forename: Hans-Christoph
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Friederich
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stippich
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weisbrod
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kaiser
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult