Do sensorimotor perturbations to standing balance elicit an error-related negativity?

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Aiden M. Payne, Georgia Tech; Lena Ting, Emory University; Greg Hajcak, Florida State University
• Language: English
• Date: 2019-07-01
• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication Version: Author Accepted Manuscript (After Peer Review)
• Copyright Statement: © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/psyp.13359
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: Psychopathology
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 7
• Start Page: e13359
• End Page: e13359
• Grant/Funding Information: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (5T90DA032466, 1P50NS098685, and R01 HD46922–10), the National Science Foundation (1137229), the Georgia Tech Neural Engineering Center, and the Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly Authority of Fulton County.
• Keywords: Neurosciences; N1; Physiology; sensorimotor; ERN; perturbation; Developmental changes; Neurosciences & Neurology; Psychology; Science & Technology; Psychology, Experimental; Life Sciences & Biomedicine; Neural system; Evoked Potentials; balance; Cortical response; Psychology, Biological; Anterior cingulate cortex; Human postural response; Social Sciences; error-related negativity; Brain activity; Cerebral potentials; Obsessive compulsive disorder; Medial frontal cortex
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Rehabilitation and Therapy; Psychology, Psychobiology; Engineering, Biomedical; Health Sciences, Human Development; Psychology, Developmental

Abstract

Detecting and correcting errors is essential to successful action. Studies on response monitoring have examined scalp ERPs following the commission of motor slips in speeded-response tasks, focusing on a frontocentral negativity (i.e., error-related negativity or ERN). Sensorimotor neurophysiologists investigating cortical monitoring of reactive balance recovery behavior observe a strikingly similar pattern of scalp ERPs following externally imposed postural errors, including a brief frontocentral negativity that has been referred to as the balance N1. We integrate and review relevant literature from these discrepant fields to suggest shared underlying mechanisms and potential benefits of collaboration across fields. Unlike the cognitive tasks leveraged to study the ERN, balance perturbations afford precise experimental control of postural errors to elicit balance N1s that are an order of magnitude larger than the ERN and drive robust and well-characterized adaptation of behavior within an experimental session. Many factors that modulate the ERN, including motivation, perceived consequences, perceptual salience, expectation, development, and aging, are likewise known to modulate the balance N1. We propose that the ERN and balance N1 reflect common neural activity for detecting errors. Collaboration across fields could help clarify the functional significance of the ERN and poorly understood interactions between motor and cognitive impairments.