Theta Lingua Franca: A Common Mid-Frontal Substrate for Action Monitoring Processes

By James F. Cavanagh, L. Zambrano-Vazquez, John J. B. Allen. Psychophysiology, 2011

622 citations recorded by the source corpus.

In this paper, we present evidence that a multitude of mid-frontal Event-Related Potential (ERP) components partially reflect a common theta-band oscillatory process. Specifically, mid-frontal ERP components in the “N2” time range and “ERN” time range are parsimoniously characterized as reflections of theta band activities. Forty participants completed three different tasks with varying stimulus-response demands. Permutation tests were used to identify the dominant time-frequency responses of stimulus- and response-locked conditions, as well as the enhanced EEG responses to novelty, conflict, punishment and error. A dominant theta band feature was found in all conditions, and both ERP component amplitudes and theta power measures were similarly modulated by novelty, conflict, punishment and error. The findings support the hypothesis that generic and reactive mPFC processes are parsimoniously reflected by theta band activities.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5df79fa4b72de77d51ed3810f0b26b314ab424da

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In Cognitive Neuroscience

Citations in the corpus

Target Amplification and Distractor Inhibition: Theta Oscillatory Dynamics of Selective Attention in a Flanker Task (2020, background): “The results support the notion of an interactive cognitive conflict network (Botvinick et al., 2001; Botvinick et al., 2004), including communicative exchange between ACC and parietal cortices, to manage stimulus and response conflict in an adaptive manner.”
Neural signatures of prioritization and facilitation in retrieving repeated items in visual working memory (2025, unknown): “In summary, our study provides crucial empirical evidence of facilitation and prioritization of repeated items over non-repeated items and explains the probable role of different EEG rhythms in facilitated recognition of repeated items over goal-relevant, not-repeated items in VWM.”
Parietal Alpha Oscillatory Peak Frequency Mediates the Effect of Practice on Visuospatial Working Memory Performance (2022, background): “Moreover, a crucial role in top-down control and cognitive monitoring has also been ascribed to rhythmic activity between 3 and 7 Hz [120,121].”
Time course of EEG power during creative problem‐solving with insight or remote thinking (2021, background): “Cavanagh et al. (2012); Cavanagh and Frank (2014) proposed that theta rhythm generated by the medial PFC region is involved in monitoring novelty, conflict, and surprise.”
How to refocus attention on working memory representations following interruptions—Evidence from frontal theta and posterior alpha oscillations (2021, background): “They have been associated with a higher need for cognitive control (Cavanagh & Frank, 2014; Cavanagh & Shackman, 2015; Cavanagh et al., 2012) and have been shown to increase in power when switching the focus of attention between the working memory representations of two sequential tasks (de Vries…”
Frontal theta and posterior alpha oscillations reflect the reactivation of working memory representations following interruptions (2020, background): “…with our hypothesis that frontal theta power in the context of retroactive attentional orienting reflects the ability to exert attentional control on the level of working memory rather than the actual need for such a process (cf. Cavanagh et al., 2012; Cavanagh & Frank, 2014; Zanto et al., 2010).”