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

在现代社会中，迅速停止一个人的行为的能力对于生存至关重要。无论是在无害的情况下（检查棒球棒的摆动）还是在危及生命的情况下，快速停止行动都是与日常生活高度相关的人类核心能力。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进一步了解运动发射（启动一个动作）和运动抑制（停止该动作）下的大脑活动如何在动作快速停止期间相互作用。阐明动作停止背后的神经相互作用将使我们对健康和疾病中的灵活行为有基本的了解。这一点尤其重要，因为在许多神经精神疾病中，动作停止受到严重损害。在这个项目中，Wessel博士将在他的机构实施一个教育机会，旨在为第一代大学生提供人类神经科学的第一手研究经验，这一群体传统上在基础学术科学和STEM劳动力中代表性不足。停止执行已经开始的行动的能力是一种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“运行”进程和另一个独立的“停止”进程之间的竞赛，后者竞相拦截运行进程。虽然过去的大量研究已经证实，额基底神经节大脑网络实现了这个等式的“停止”部分，但人类的研究到目前为止还没有证明大脑中单独的“停止”和“继续”过程之间存在实际的竞争。通过结合颅内/颅外脑电图和皮质-脊髓兴奋性与脑刺激的测量，该项目旨在阐明在所有加工水平（运动，皮层，皮层下）上所声称的种族的神经伴随。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离开来，将识别出停止过程的纯神经测量。其次，这种停止过程的特征和对继续过程的相应测量将用于基于他们的神经竞赛的一次又一次的结果来预测行为。第三，将使用经颅磁刺激和深部脑刺激来破坏停止过程下的神经网络皮层和皮层下节点，以验证这种破坏损害运动抑制的假设，特别是通过使种族偏向于“继续”过程。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值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.