Left inferior frontal gyrus is critical for response inhibition

By Diane Swick, Victoria Ashley, And U. Turken. BMC Neuroscience, 2008

751 citations recorded by the source corpus.

BackgroundLesion studies in human and non-human primates have linked several different regions of prefrontal cortex (PFC) with the ability to inhibit inappropriate motor responses. However, recent functional neuroimaging studies have specifically implicated right inferior PFC in response inhibition. Right frontal dominance for inhibitory motor control has become a commonly accepted view, although support for this position has not been consistent. Particularly conspicuous is the lack of data on the importance of the homologous region in the left hemisphere. To investigate whether the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) is critical for response inhibition, we used neuropsychological methodology with carefully characterized brain lesions in neurological patients.ResultsTwelve individuals with damage in the left IFG and the insula were tested in a Go/NoGo response inhibition task. In alternating blocks, the difficulty of response inhibition was easy (50% NoGo trials) or hard (10% NoGo trials). Controls showed the predicted pattern of faster reaction times and more false alarm errors in the hard condition. Left IFG patients had higher error rates than controls in both conditions, but were more impaired in the hard condition, when a greater degree of inhibitory control was required. In contrast, a patient control group with orbitofrontal cortex lesions showed intact performance.ConclusionRecent neuroimaging studies have focused on a highly specific association between right IFG and inhibitory control. The present results indicate that the integrity of left IFG is also critical for successful implementation of inhibitory control over motor responses. Our findings demonstrate the importance of obtaining converging evidence from multiple methodologies in cognitive neuroscience.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1dec5e5fd1034639d96f3a0905964824cae61245

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Citations in the corpus

Are the neural correlates of stopping and not going identical? Quantitative meta-analysis of two response inhibition tasks (2011, methodology): “Also notable are large clusters in the left middle and inferior frontal gyri (BA 9, 6, 44) and the left insula/putamen/claustrum, which overlaps with the insular region damaged in the left IFG patients in our lesion study (Swick et al., 2008).”
From reactive to proactive and selective control: developing a richer model for stopping inappropriate responses (2010, neutral): “[27] for evidence that left frontal damage can affect o/no-go performance).”
To create or to recall? Neural mechanisms underlying the generation of creative new ideas (2014, positive): “The left orbital inferior frontal cortex is consistently associated with executive functions such as prepotent response inhibition according to functional imaging studies as well as lesion studies (Barbey et al., 2012; Roberts and Wallis, 2000; Swick et al., 2008), although there is also evidence fo”
The Neurodevelopment of Empathy in Humans (2010, background): “In line with evidence that regulatory mechanisms continue into late adolescence and early adulthood, greater signal change with increasing age was found in the prefrontal regions involved in cognitive control and response inhibition, such as the dlPFC and inferior frontal gyrus [Swick et al., 2008].”
fMRI Reactivity to High-Calorie Food Pictures Predicts Short- and Long-Term Outcome in a Weight-Loss Program (2012, background): “In addition, although the IFG has been implicated in inhibitory control processes (e.g., Swick et al., 2008; Hare et al., 2009), it may mediate other cognitive processes as well (e.g., Chouinard et al., 2009; Coull et al., 1996).”
Inflammation-related aberrations in beta and gamma oscillatory dynamics serving attention processing in typically developing youth (2025, unknown): “The left IFG in particular has been associated with response inhibition, 71,76,86 thus its disengagement being linked with faster response times is rather intuitive.”