EEG Theta Dynamics within Frontal and Parietal Cortices for Error Processing during Reaching Movements in a Prism Adaptation Study Altering Visuo-Motor Predictive Planning

Abstract

Modulation of frontal midline theta (fmθ) is observed during error commission, but little is known about the role of theta oscillations in correcting motor behaviours. We investigate EEG activity of healthy partipants executing a reaching task under variable degrees of prism-induced visuo-motor distortion and visual occlusion of the initial arm trajectory. This task introduces directional errors of different magnitudes. The discrepancy between predicted and actual movement directions (i.e. the error), at the time when visual feedback (hand appearance) became available, elicits a signal that triggers on-line movement correction. Analysis were performed on 25 EEG channels. For each participant, the median value of the angular error of all reaching trials was used to partition the EEG epochs into high- and low-error conditions. We computed event-related spectral perturbations (ERSP) time-locked either to visual feedback or to the onset of movement correction. ERSP time-locked to the onset of visual feedback showed that fmθ increased in the high- but not in the low-error condition with an approximate time lag of 200 ms. Moreover, when single epochs were sorted by the degree of motor error, fmθ started to increase when a certain level of error was exceeded and, then, scaled with error magnitude. When ERSP were time-locked to the onset of movement correction, the fmθ increase anticipated this event with an approximate time lead of 50 ms. During successive trials, an error reduction was observed which was associated with indices of adaptations (i.e., aftereffects) suggesting the need to explore if theta oscillations may facilitate learning. To our knowledge this is the first study where the EEG signal recorded during reaching movements was time-locked to the onset of the error visual feedback. This allowed us to conclude that theta oscillations putatively generated by anterior cingulate cortex activation are implicated in error processing in semi-naturalistic motor behaviours.

Visual Feedback Modulates Aftereffects and Electrophysiological Markers of Prism Adaptation

“…This brain region also displays increased activity during the early phases of PA exposure while participants are making errors (Danckert et al, 2008). Another study identified that frontal midline theta dynamics time-locked to visual feedback during PA were modulated by error magnitude (Arrighi et al, 2016). Although the proposed neural generators of the P300 are varied (Polich and Kok, 1995;Polich, 2007), its more posterior topography is broadly consistent with the proposed role of the posterior parietal cortex in realignment processes (Chapman et al, 2010).…”

“…More broadly, there is growing evidence to suggest that successful visuomotor learning relies on a distributed frontoparietal network, whereby frontal regions coordinate online movement corrections, and parietal regions contribute to a more gradual adaptation that involves learning from past corrections (Mutha et al, 2011a(Mutha et al, ,b, 2014Arrighi et al, 2016). These two processes resemble the strategic recalibration and spatial realignment processes of PA (Redding and Wallace, 1996), and their neural correlates resemble the regions underlying our ERPs of interest.…”

Altered functional connectivity in blepharospasm/orofacial dystonia

“…The reduced FC between caudate and motor cortices might contribute to impaired motion control leading to the characteristic involuntary movements, as basal ganglia are important for the selection and inhibition of motor commands (Neychev et al., ). The same accounts for reduced FC of the putamen to the anterior cingulate cortex, a region which is relevant for motor planning and error correction (Arrighi et al., ). In this context, the anterior cingular cortex as seed ROI showed altered FC with the primary motor cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex with the premotor, primary, and supplementary motor cortex.…”

The power of neural oscillations to inform sentence comprehension: A linguistic perspective

“…It is thus tempting to conclude that theta increases in these contexts (syntactic violations and/or semantic anomalies) might indicate a general violation detection mechanism. Supporting evidence for this idea comes from outside the sentence processing literature, where, for example, Tzur and Berger (2007) reported increases in theta in response to incorrect solutions of mathematical equations, or Arrighi et al (2016) observed that theta increases are modulated by the degree of motor error in a reaching task.…”