CAREER: Human motor inhibition: a neural race between motor emission and cognitive control

在现代社会中，即使在行动开始后也能迅速停止行动的能力，对于生存是至关重要的。无论是在良性的情况下(检查棒球棒的挥动)，还是在危及生命的情况下，快速停止行动是人类的一项核心能力，与日常生活高度相关。在这个项目中，Wessel博士将使用成年健康人类的神经记录和大脑刺激来加深我们对运动发射(发起动作)和运动抑制(停止该动作)的大脑活动在动作快速停止期间如何相互作用的理解。阐明动作停止背后的神经相互作用将有助于我们对健康和疾病中灵活行为的基本理解。这一点尤其相关，因为在许多神经精神障碍中，动作停止明显受损。在这个项目中，Wessel博士将在他所在的机构实施一个教育机会，旨在为第一代大学生提供第一手的人类神经科学研究经验，这一群体在基础学术科学和STEM劳动力中的代表性历来较低。停止执行已经启动的行动的能力是一项关键的认知控制能力。在著名的理论模型中，停止被概念化为一个“GO”过程和一个单独的“Stop”过程之间的竞赛，该过程竞相拦截GO过程。尽管过去广泛的研究已经证实，额叶-基底节大脑网络实现了这一等式的“停止”端，但人类研究迄今还没有证明大脑中独立的停止和继续过程之间存在真正的竞赛。通过将颅内/外脑电和皮质-脊髓兴奋性的测量与脑刺激相结合，该项目旨在阐明据称的种族在所有水平的加工(运动、皮质、皮质下)上的神经伴随。首先，通过将反映停止信号检测的神经过程与反映停止过程本身的神经过程分开来识别停止过程的纯神经测量。其次，这个停止进程的签名和相应的GO进程测量将被用于基于他们的神经竞赛的逐次试验结果来预测行为。第三，停止过程背后的神经网络的皮质和皮质下节点将使用经颅磁刺激和深部大脑刺激来测试这样的假设，即这种干扰通过将比赛偏向“围棋”过程而特别损害运动抑制。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The ability to rapidly stop one's actions even after their initiation is paramount to survival in modern society. Be it in benign scenarios (checking the swing of a baseball bat) or in life-threatening scenarios, rapid action-stopping is a core human ability that is highly relevant in everyday life. In this project, Dr. Wessel will use neural recordings and brain stimulation in adult healthy humans to further our understanding of how brain activity underlying motor emission (initiating an action) and motor inhibition (stopping that action) interact during the rapid stopping of action. Elucidating the neural interactions underlying action-stopping will inform our basic understanding of flexible behavior in both health and disease. This is especially relevant since action-stopping is significantly impaired across many neuropsychiatric disorders. During this project, Dr. Wessel will implement an educational opportunity at his institution that aims to provide a first-hand research experience in human neuroscience to first-generation college students, a population that is traditionally underrepresented in basic academic science and the STEM workforce.The ability to stop the execution of an already initiated action is a key cognitive control ability. In prominent theoretical models, stopping is conceptualized as a race between a "go"-process and a separate "stop"-process that races to intercept the go-process. While extensive past research has established that a fronto-basal ganglia brain network implements the "stop" side of this equation, human research has so far fallen short of demonstrating the existence of an actual race between separate stop- and a go-processes in the brain. By combining measurements of intra- / extracranial electroencephalography and cortico-spinal excitability with brain stimulation, the project aims to elucidate neural concomitants of the purported race on all levels of processing (motor, cortical, subcortical). First, a pure neural measurement of the stopping process will be identified by disentangling neural processes that reflect stop-signal detection from those that reflect the stop-process itself. Second, this signature of the stop-process and an according measurement of the go-process will be used to predict behavior based on the trial-by-trial outcome of their neural race. Third, cortical and subcortical nodes of the neural network underlying the stop-process will be disrupted using transcranial magnetic and deep-brain stimulation to test the hypothesis that such disruptions impair motor inhibition specifically by biasing the race towards the "go" process.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.