Evaluating a Fronto-Basal-Ganglia White-Matter Network for Behavioral Stopping in Lesion Patients

我们怎样才能不让自己分心呢？我们如何克服我们的强迫、抽搐和不适当的冲动？这些都是关于认知控制的问题。很好地理解这种控制背后的心理和神经机制对日常生活的许多方面以及基础科学都至关重要。研究认知控制的一个有效方法是研究人们如何停止已经启动的反应。停止已经启动的反应可以作为我们在日常生活中停止各种冲动的实验模型。最近的研究表明，停止是由大脑中的几个关键“节点”实现的。脑节点之间的交流很可能是通过远距离连接（白质束）进行的。在美国国家科学基金会（National Science Foundation）的支持下，亚当·阿隆博士（Adam Aron）和他的研究团队将测试这种想法，即在停止行为背后存在一个远程连接网络。该方法有两个方面：首先，使用一种形式的神经成像来测量健康年轻人样本中的连接强度，并检查连接强度的变化与个体停止行为能力的差异之间的关系；其次，对特定脑损伤患者的连接进行成像。如果特定的连接是停止的关键，那么即使大脑的关键“节点”本身完好无损，这些连接的损伤也会导致停止的问题。总的来说，这些研究将利用最近开发的大脑连接分析方法来揭示关于大脑关键区域之间的连接网络如何成为人类控制的基础的新信息。它们与认知神经科学的最新发展保持一致，后者强调连接的重要性，而不仅仅是大脑区域本身。这项资助的工作将补充Aron博士实验室的活动，这些活动已经在多个阶段对科学教育产生了影响，包括在圣地亚哥地区学校的外展活动，在实验室接待少数民族学生以及本科生和研究生教学。这项工作通过向Aron博士的实验室和部门引入新的科学成分，增加了独特的教育价值：其中包括对大脑病变患者的研究和分析大脑连接的方法。总的来说，计划中的实验可以获得关于停止的神经结构的信息，这些信息对人类发展、法理学和神经精神病学等不同领域都有影响。大脑连接的改变，可能与发育迟缓、疾病或损伤有关，可能导致抑制不当行为的能力不足。各种神经精神疾病，如注意力缺陷、抽动障碍、暴饮暴食和药物滥用可能与大脑连接的改变有关。

How are we able to prevent ourselves from being distracted? How can we overcome our compulsions, tics and inappropriate urges? These are questions about cognitive control. A good understanding of the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying such control is of paramount importance for many aspects of everyday life as well as for basic science. A fruitful way to study cognitive control is to examine how people stop already initiated responses. Stopping an already initiated response could be an experimental model for the way in which we stop all kinds of urges in everyday life. Recent research suggests that stopping is achieved by several key "nodes" in the brain. It is likely that communication between the nodes occurs via long-range connections (white matter tracts). With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Adam Aron and his research team will test this idea of a network of long-range connections underlying stopping behavior. The approach is twofold: first, to use a form of neuroimaging to measure the strength of the connections in a sample of healthy young adults, and to examine how variations in the strength of the connections relates to individual differences in the behavioral ability to stop; second, to image the connections in patients with specific brain injuries. If particular connections are key for stopping, then damage to these connections will produce problems with stopping even when the key brain "nodes" themselves are intact. Overall, these studies will harness recently-developed methods for the analysis of brain connections to reveal novel information about how the network of connections between key brain regions underlies human control. They are in keeping with recent developments in cognitive neuroscience which emphasize the importance of connections rather than just brain regions themselves. The funded work will complement activities in Dr. Aron's laboratory which already have an impact on science education at multiple stages, including outreach activities in San Diego area schools, hosting of minority students in the lab and undergraduate and graduate teaching. The work adds unique educational value by introducing new scientific components into Dr. Aron's lab and department: these include the study of patients with brain lesions and methods for analyzing brain connections. Overall, the planned experiments could yield information about the neural architecture of stopping that has implications for diverse domains such as human development, jurisprudence and neuropsychiatry. Alterations in brain connections, perhaps related to developmental delays, disease, or injury, could lead to deficits in inhibiting inappropriate actions. Various neuropsychiatric disorders, such as attention deficits, tic disorders, over-eating and substance abuse may relate to alterations in the brain connections underlying stopping.