Stopping an initiated response could be implemented by a fronto-basal-ganglia circuit, including the right inferior frontal cortex (rIFC) and the subthalamic nucleus (STN). Intracranial recording studies in humans reveal an increase in beta-band power (~16-20 Hz) within the rIFC and STN when a response is stopped. This suggests that the beta-band could be important for communication in this network. If this is the case, then altering one region should affect the electrophysiological response at the other. We addressed this hypothesis by recording scalp EEG during a stop task while modulating STN activity with deep brain stimulation. We studied 15 human patients with Parkinson's Disease and 15 matched healthy control subjects. Behaviorally, patients OFF stimulation were slower than controls to stop their response. Moreover, stopping speed was improved for ON compared to OFF stimulation. For scalp EEG, there was greater beta power, around the time of stopping, for patients ON compared to OFF stimulation. This effect was stronger over the right compared to left frontal cortex, consistent with the putative right-lateralization of the stopping network. Thus, deep brain stimulation of the STN improved behavioral stopping performance and increased the beta-band response over the right frontal cortex. These results complement other evidence for a structurally-connected, functional, circuit between right frontal cortex and the basal ganglia. The results also suggest that deep brain stimulation of the STN may improve task performance by increasing the fidelity of information transfer within a fronto-basal ganglia circuit.

It is not yet well understood how dopaminergic therapy improves cognitive and motor function in Parkinson's disease (PD). One possibility is that it reduces the pathological synchronization within and between the cortex and basal ganglia, thus improving neural communication. We tested this hypothesis by recording scalp electroencephalography (EEG) in PD patients when On and Off medication, during a brief resting state epoch (no task), and during performance of a stop signal task that is thought to engage two partially overlapping (or different) frontal-basal-ganglia circuits. For resting state EEG, we measured pair-wise coherence between scalp electrodes in several frequency bands. Consistent with previous studies, in the Off medication state, those patients with the greatest clinical impairment had the strongest coherence, especially in the beta band, indicating pathological over-synchronization. Dopaminergic medication reduced this coherence. For the stop signal task, On vs. Off medication increased beta band power over right frontal cortex for successful stopping and over bilateral sensorimotor cortex for going, especially for those patients who showed greater clinical improvement. Thus, medication reduced pathological coherence in beta band at rest and increased task related beta power for two potentially dissociable cortico-basal ganglia circuits. These results support the hypothesis that dopaminergic medication in PD improves neural communication both at rest and for executive and motor function.

Healthy aging is associated with declines in episodic memory performance that are due in part to deficits in encoding. Emerging results from young adult studies suggest that the neural activity during the time preceding stimulus presentation is sensitive to episodic memory performance. It is unknown whether age-related declines in episodic memory are due solely to changes in the recruitment of processes elicited by stimuli during encoding or also in processes recruited in anticipation of these stimuli. Here, we recorded oscillatory electroencephalography while young and old participants encoded visual and auditory words that were preceded by cues indicating the stimulus modality. Individual differences in alpha oscillatory activity preceding, and following, stimulus onset was predictive of subsequent memory performance similarly across age. Poststimulus theta power correlated positively with episodic memory performance for old but not young adults, potentially reflecting older adults’ tendency to self-generate associations during encoding. Collectively, these results suggest that the preparatory mobilization of neural processes before encoding that benefits episodic memory performance is not affected by age but instead dependent on the individual’s propensity to preemptively mobilize task-specific processes.