Neural Origins of the P300

Abstract

A review of the literature investigating the neural origins of detection behavior in humans reveals two event-related potential components, P3a and P3b, each with a distinct neural organization and cognitive function. The P3a is involved in automatic novelty detection and characterized by a more anterior cortical distribution, whereas the P3b is concerned with volitional target detection and has a more posterior cortical distribution. Intracranial investigation, studies with patients with focal brain lesions, and functional neuroimaging (fMRI) studies converge with the scalp-recorded ERP data in suggesting that a widespread cortical network gives rise to both automatic and controlled detection behavior. The main regions consistently attributed to generating detection related brain activation include the temporal-parietal junction, medial temporal complex, and the lateral prefrontal cortex. The extant human and animal literature addressing the neural networks, neuropharmacological underpinnings, and behavioral signicance of "the P300" potential will be reviewed.

Attractiveness and affordance shape tools neural coding: Insight from ERPs

“…The larger positive amplitude elicited by high affording/high attractive, compared to low affording/low attractive tools, might suggest differences in the attentional updating process (Soltani and Knight, 2000;Polich, 2007). Taking into account that the P300 has been shown to be sensitive to stimuli arousal value (Delplanque et al, 2006), it may be that the greater posterior attentional system activity for high affording/ high attractive tools reflects the focusing of attention on arousing positive valence stimuli, in agreement with previous studies (Delplanque et al, 2004(Delplanque et al, , 2006de Tommaso et al, 2008;Dolcos and Cabeza, 2002).…”

Updating P300: An integrative theory of P3a and P3b

“…The neural generators of P300 are imprecisely delineated, although appreciable progress has been made in the last 25 years (Eichele et al, 2005;Linden, 2005;Soltani and Knight, 2000).…”

“…P300 amplitude is affected by temporal-parietal junction integrity as its absence greatly reduces component size over the parietal area (Knight et al, 1989;Verleger et al, 1994;Yamaguchi and Knight, 1992). This connection implies that the P3a and P3b indicate a circuit pathway between frontal and temporal/parietal brain areas (Soltani and Knight, 2000;Polich, 2003). Figure 6 presents a neuropsychological model for P3a and P3b based on these results (Polich, 2003).…”

Decision making, the P3, and the locus coeruleus--norepinephrine system.

“…Although, as discussed above, the hippocampus is unlikely to be a direct generator of P3 activity, these results have been taken as evidence for the importance of interactions between hippocampus and prefrontal cortex in detecting novel stimuli (cf. Soltani & Knight, 2000). According to this view, hippocampal lesions reduce the activity in prefrontal regions implicated in P3a generation (cf.…”