Possible Role of Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Error Awareness: Single-Pulse TMS Evidence

Abstract

Background: Error awareness is essential to maintain an adaptive and goal-directed behavior and is supposed to rely on the activity of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). However, studies employing electrophysiological methods and functional resonance imaging (fMRI) do not allow to establish a causal relationship between error awareness and implicated brain structures.Objective: The study examined the causal relationship between DLPFC activity and error awareness in order to confirm the involvement of the right DLPFC in error awareness and to obtain temporal information about this process, namely when the activity of the right DLPFC is involved in error awareness.Methods: Three experiments with three different samples were conducted employing on-line Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). A paired-pulse and a single-pulse on-line TMS paradigm were employed respectively in Experiments 1 and 3, whereas in Experiment 2 a control test was conducted without TMS. In TMS experiments, the right DLPFC was stimulated, considering the left DLPFC and the Vertex as control sites.Results: Experiment 1 showed no effect of paired-pulse TMS over either right or left DLPFC on error awareness. In Experiment 3, independently from the time point during which TMS was delivered, results showed a significant effect of single-pulse TMS over the DLPFC on Stroop Awareness, without evidence for lateralization of the process.Conclusions: Results of the present study partially demonstrate the involvement of the DLPFC in error awareness.

Repetitive TMS over the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex modulates the error positivity: An ERP study

“…The selected target areas were the right and left DLPFC. As previously remarked, lateral prefrontal regions have been suggested to be involved in error awareness together with the well-known role of medial frontal cortex (Harty et al, 2014;Masina et al, 2018). Interestingly, a recent study showed a relationship between the left DLPFC and PES (Mansouri et al, 2016).…”

“…According to Cieslik et al (2013), the MNI coordinates of the right DLPFC were 30, 43, 23, whereas the MNI coordinates of the left DLPFC were −30, 43, 23. These MNI coordinates were selected because, in a previous study, Masina et al (2018) identified that these coordinates were causally associated with two brain areas involved in error awareness, namely the right and left DLPFC. The position of the Vertex was the Cz site of the International 10-20 system.…”

“…Hester et al (2012) enhanced error awareness by the administration of a single dose of methylphenidate, demonstrating a link between error awareness and the catecholaminergic neurotransmission. More recently, Masina et al (2018) demonstrated that an on-line single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation protocol (TMS) delivered on the right and on the left DLPFC induced a reduction of error awareness in a group of healthy participants.…”

“…Wessel et al (2014) proposed that the lateral prefrontal cortex is a crucial hub within the prefrontal-cingulate performancemonitoring network (PCMN), which triggers compensatory mechanisms following an error (e.g., PES). The DLPFC seems to be central in metacognitive processes (Qiu et al, 2018), such as error awareness (Hoerold et al, 2013; see also Harty et al, 2014;Masina et al, 2018). However, the causal contribution of dorsolateral prefrontal areas has not been elucidated yet.…”

Involvement of the Right Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex in Numerical Rule Induction: A Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation Study

“…As is found by previous studies, the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) plays a fundamental role in top-down regulatory processes of cognitive control (Botvinick et al, 2001 ; Nunez et al, 2005 ; Vanderhasselt and Raedt, 2009 ; Cieslik et al, 2013 ; Gbadeyan et al, 2016 ; Boschin et al, 2017 ), especially solving the conflicting effects in the Stroop (Vanderhasselt et al, 2007 ; Boschin et al, 2017 ; Masina et al, 2018 ; Seok and Sohn, 2018 ) and Flanker tasks (Gbadeyan et al, 2016 ; Chen et al, 2018 ). While the checking process reflects the conflict cost (Li et al, 2009 ) on performance of relations detection, it is assessed as the difference in response time (RT) between invalid and valid trials.…”