Dorsomedial striatum involvement in regulating conflict between current and presumed outcomes.
The balance between automatic and controlled processing is essential to human flexible but optimal behavior. On the one hand, the automation of habitual behavior and processing is indispensable, and, on the other hand, strategic processing is needed in light of unexpected, conflicting, or new situations. Using ultra-high-field high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (7T-fMRI), the present study examined the role of subcortical structures in mediating this balance. Participants were asked to judge the congruency of sentences containing a semantically ambiguous or unambiguous word. Ambiguous sentences had three possible resolutions: dominant meaning, subordinate meaning, and incongruent. The dominant interpretation represents the most habitual response, whereas both the subordinate and incongruent options clash with this automatic response, and, hence, require cognitive control. Moreover, the subordinate resolution entails a less expected but correct outcome, while the incongruent condition is simply wrong. The current results reveal the involvement of the anterior dorsomedial striatum in modulating and resolving conflict between actual and expected outcomes, and highlight the importance of cortical and subcortical cooperation in this process.
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom; Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: anna.mestres-misse@manchester.ac.uk.
Anna
A
Mestres-Missé
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Pierre-Louis
PL
Bazin
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Robert
R
Trampel
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Robert
R
Turner
School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom; Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
Sonja A
SA
Kotz
D000328:Adult; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D017072:Neostriatum / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult
7T-fMRI; Ambiguity; Cognitive control; Conflict; Striatum