title: The point of no return in vetoing self-initiated movements.
abstract: In humans, spontaneous movements are often preceded by early brain signals. One such signal is the readiness potential (RP) that gradually arises within the last second preceding a movement. An important question is whether people are able to cancel movements after the elicitation of such RPs, and if so until which point in time. Here, subjects played a game where they tried to press a button to earn points in a challenge with a brain-computer interface (BCI) that had been trained to detect their RPs in real time and to emit stop signals. Our data suggest that subjects can still veto a movement even after the onset of the RP. Cancellation of movements was possible if stop signals occurred earlier than 200 ms before movement onset, thus constituting a point of no return.
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Neurotechnology Group, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Focus: Neurotechnology, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany; haynes@bccn-berlin.de schultze-kraft@tu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schultze-Kraft
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Birman
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rusconi
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Carsten
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Allefeld
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Görgen
authors.affiliation: Machine Leaning Group, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Sven
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dähne
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Neurotechnology Group, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Focus: Neurotechnology, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany;
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Blankertz
authors.affiliation: Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Focus: Neurotechnology, Technische Universität Berlin, 10587 Berlin, Germany; Berlin Center for Advanced Neuroimaging, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany; Department of Psychology, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, 12489 Berlin, Germany; Clinic of Neurology, Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, 10117 Berlin, Germany haynes@bccn-berlin.de schultze-kraft@tu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: John-Dylan
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Haynes
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D062207:Brain-Computer Interfaces; D003265:Contingent Negative Variation / Q000502:physiology*; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004576:Electromyography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009068:Movement
keywords: brain–computer interface; free choice; point of no return; readiness potential; veto