title: An fMRI study of the functional mechanisms of Stroop/reverse-Stroop effects.
abstract: Many previous behavioral inhibition studies have employed the classic Stroop and reverse-Stroop paradigm. Although an experimental dissociation has been demonstrated between Stroop interference (SI) and reverse-Stroop interference (RI), the mechanisms that underlie these phenomena remain unclear. In this study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the functional mechanisms of SI and RI. We identified the brain regions activated by the Stroop word-color matching task using four tests: the Stroop control test (Test 1), Stroop test (Test 2), reverse-Stroop control test (Test 3), and reverse-Stroop test (Test 4). Neuroimaging results revealed that SI elicited activation in the bilateral middle frontal gyrus (BA9). In contrast, a number of other regions, including the bilateral middle frontal gyrus (BA 9 and BA10), medial frontal gyrus (BA 8), and cingulate gyrus (BA6 and BA 32) exhibited significant activation during RI. Our results indicate that there is a dissociation between the types of interference and brain activation. These findings suggest that SI and RI interference can be attributable to different neural mechanisms. It also suggests that the prefrontal cortex and the cingulate cortex are differentially sensitive to various types of interference, and that the reverse-Stroop task may be more useful than the Stroop task for evaluating interference control in psychiatric patients with frontal dysfunction.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, Ministry of Education, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Brain Functional Genomics, School of Psychology and Cognitive Science, East China Normal University, China. Electronic address: ynsong@psy.ecnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yongning
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Human Development and Education, Kyoto Women's University, Japan.
authors.forename: Yuji
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hakoda
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D059907:Functional Neuroimaging / Q000379:methods*; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D057190:Stroop Test; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC); Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); Medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC); Reverse-Stroop interference; Stroop interference