The neural basis of temporal preparation: Insights from brain tumor patients

doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.04.017

Neuropsychologia

Volume 45, Issue 12, 2007, Pages 2755-2763

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2007.04.017 Get rights and content

Abstract

When foreperiods (FPs) of different duration vary on a trial-by-trial basis equiprobably but randomly, the RT is faster as the FP increases (variable FP effect), and becomes slower as the FP on the preceding trial gets longer (sequential effects). It is unclear whether the two effects are due to a common mechanism or to two different ones. Patients with lesions on the right lateral prefrontal cortex do not show the typical FP effect, suggesting a deficit in monitoring the FP adequately [Stuss, D. T., Alexander, M. P., Shallice, T., Picton, T. W., Binns, M. A., Macdonald, R., et al. (2005). Multiple frontal systems controlling response speed. Neuropsychologia, 43, 396–417]. The aim of this study was two-fold: (1) to replicate this neuropsychological result testing cerebral tumor patients before and after surgical removal of the tumor located unilaterally in the prefrontal, premotor or parietal cortex, respectively and (2) to investigate whether the sequential effects would change together with the FP effect (supporting single-process accounts) or the two effects can be dissociated across tumor locations (suggesting dual-process views). The results of an experiment with a variable FP paradigm show a significant reduction of the FP effect selectively after excision of tumors on right prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, the sequential effects were reliably reduced especially after surgical removal of tumors located in the left premotor region, despite a normal FP effect. The latter dissociation between the two effects supports a dual-process account of the variable FP phenomena. This study demonstrates that testing acute cerebral tumor patients represents a viable neuropsychological approach for the fractionation and localisation of cognitive processes.

Section snippets

Assignment to patient group

The pre-operative location of the tumor was determined using a digital format T1-weighted MRI scan obtained 1–2 days before surgery. The post-operative MR scans were available 3–4 months after surgery, about 1 month from the end of the radiotherapy. As by that time the area of removed brain tissue was partially replaced by healthy brain, pre-operative MR scans have been used for localisation purposes. Each patient's lesion was referred to an anatomical template image AAL (Automated Anatomical

Excluded trials

Less than 0.6% of trials were discarded because of RTs being outside the 100–3000 ms range. This percentage tended to be significantly different across patient groups, as demonstrated by a non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test [H(6, N: 70) = 12.4, p = .054]. This could be due to the fact that virtually no trial was excluded for the controls and the premotor groups. However, the percentage of excluded trials was low also in the other four groups (0.7, 0.6, 1.3 and 1.5%, for the left and right parietal,

Discussion

In this study, we aimed to investigate the variable FP phenomena in tumor patients, when tested before and after surgical removal of tumors which were located in different cortical areas. The most important finding was a reduction in the FP effect after surgical removal of tumors of the right prefrontal cortex. This finding corroborates recent studies on FP phenomena obtained in chronic patients with predominantly other etiologies such as stroke (Stuss et al., 2005; see also Picton et al., 2006

Acknowledgements

This research was partially supported by a grant from PRIN to TS and Raffaella Rumiati. AM was supported by a grant from Regione Friuli Venezia Giulia to SISSA, 2005/2006 “Neuropsicologia clinica delle funzioni esecutive e prassiche”. The authors are also thankful to the members of the Neurosurgical Department, Ospedale S.M. Misericordia, Udine, for their helpfulness throughout the study.

References (46)

G. Basso et al.
Distributed neural systems for temporal production: A functional MRI study
Brain Research Bulletin
(2003)
J.T. Coull et al.
Orienting attention in time: Behavioural and neuroanatomical distinction between exogenous and endogenous shifts
Neuropsychologia
(2000)
P.A. Lewis et al.
Distinct systems for automatic and cognitively controlled time measurement: Evidence from neuroimaging
Current Opinion in Neurobiology
(2003)
R. Näätänen
The diminishing time-uncertainty with the lapse of time after the warning signal in reaction-time experiments with varying foreperiods
Acta Psychologica
(1970)
R. Näätänen
Nonaging foreperiod and simple reaction time
Acta Psychologica
(1971)
T.W. Picton et al.
Keeping time: Effects of focal frontal lesions
Neuropsychologia
(2006)
A. Riehle et al.
The predictive value for performance speed of preparatory changes in neuronal activity of the monkey motor and premotor cortex
Behavioural Brain Research
(1993)
L. Rueckert et al.
Sustained attention deficits in patients with right frontal lesions
Neuropsychologia
(1996)
A. Smith et al.
A right hemispheric frontocerebellar network for time discrimination of several hundreds of milliseconds
Neuroimage
(2003)
D.T. Stuss et al.
Multiple frontal systems controlling response speed
Neuropsychologia
(2005)

N. Tzourio-Mazoyer et al.

Automated anatomical labeling of activations in SPM using a macroscopic anatomical parcellation of the MNI MRI single-subject brain

Neuroimage

(2002)

A.J. Wilkins et al.

Frontal lesions and sustained attention

Neuropsychologia

(1987)

J. Alegria

Sequential effects of foreperiod duration: some strategical factors in tasks involving time uncertainty.

C.H.M. Brunia et al.

Motor preparation

M.M. Churchland et al.

Delay of movement caused by disruption of cortical preparatory activity

Journal of Neurophysiology

(2007)

D.L. Collins et al.

Design and construction of a realistic digital brain phantom

IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging

(1998)

A. Correa et al.

The attentional mechanism of temporal orienting: Determinants and attributes

Experimental Brain Research

(2006)

J.T. Coull et al.

Where and when to pay attention: The neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI

The Journal of Neuroscience

(1998)

D.H. Drazin

Effects of foreperiod, foreperiod variability, and probability of stimulus occurrence on simple reaction time

Journal of Experimental Psychology

(1961)

A. Elithorn et al.

Central inhibition: Some refractory observations

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

(1955)

P.C. Fletcher et al.

Frontal lobes and human memory: Insights from functional neuroimaging

Brain

(2001)

D.L. Harrington et al.

Cortical networks underlying mechanisms of time perception

The Journal of Neuroscience

(1998)

R.N. Henson et al.

Right prefrontal cortex and episodic memory retrieval: A functional MRI test of the monitoring hypothesis

Brain

(1999)

Cited by (81)

Executive/cognitive control
2021, Encyclopedia of Behavioral Neuroscience: Second Edition
The capacity for active thought is arguably one of humanity's defining features. The frontal lobes are critically involved in active thinking. In this article we will consider what can be learned from the effects of frontal lobe lesions about: (1) the relationship between active thought and intelligence, (2) whether active thought can occur without language, and (3) the processes involved in active thinking. The evidence reviewed reveals that different forms of active thought and their essential pre-requisites can be fractionated and appear to be underpinned by different frontal areas. Hence, active thinking may be achieved by distinct, interacting cognitive processes.
The left frontal lobe is critical for the AH4 fluid intelligence test
2021, Intelligence
The frontal lobes are thought to make a fundamental contribution to fluid intelligence. However, evidence that fluid intelligence is impaired following focal frontal lobe lesions is surprisingly sparse and based on non-verbal tests of fluid intelligence. We investigated performance on Part 1 of the Alice Heim 4 (AH4–1), a verbal test of fluid intelligence, in a sample of 35 patients with focal, unilateral, left or right, frontal brain tumours and 54 healthy controls. We analysed the following variables: overall number of correct AH4–1 answers, overall AH4–1 accuracy and accuracy on four selected categories of AH4–1 questions that assess abilities previously linked to the frontal lobes, namely: synonyms, verbal analogies, numerical series and multistage calculations. We found several significant frontal effects. Thus, in comparison to healthy controls, frontal patients had a significantly lower overall number of AH4–1 answers, had significantly lower overall AH4–1 accuracy and had significantly poorer performance on verbal analogies and multistage calculations. We also found several significant lateralised left frontal effects. Thus, in comparison to healthy controls, left, but not right, frontal patents had significantly lower overall AH4–1 accuracy and poorer performance on synonyms, numerical series and multistage calculation questions. This suggests that the left frontal lobe plays a critical role in AH4–1 performance. Moreover, left frontal patients had significantly lower overall AH4–1 accuracy and poorer performance on multistage calculations than right frontal patients. These results suggest that a left lateralised frontal network is critically involved in some aspects of fluid intelligence and, in particular, multistage calculations.
Prompting future events: Effects of temporal cueing and time on task on brain preparation to action
2020, Brain and Cognition
Prediction about event timing plays a leading role in organizing and optimizing behavior. We recorded anticipatory brain activities and evaluated whether temporal orienting processes are reflected by the novel prefrontal negative (pN) component, as already shown for the contingent negative variation (CNV). Fourteen young healthy participants underwent EEG and fMRI recordings in separate sessions; they were asked to perform a Go/No-Go task in which temporal orienting was manipulated: the external condition (a visual display indicating the time of stimulus onset) and the internal condition (time information not provided). In both conditions, the source of the pN was localized in the pars opercularis of the iFg; the source of the CNV was localized in the supplementary motor area and cingulate motor area, as expected. Anticipatory activity was also found in the occipital-parietal cortex. Time on task EEG analysis showed a marked learning effect in the internal condition, while the effect was minor in the external condition. In fMRI, the two conditions had a similar pattern; similarities and differences of results obtained with the two techniques are discussed. Overall, data are consistent with the view that the pN reflects a proactive cognitive control, including temporal orienting.
Focal left prefrontal lesions and cognitive impairment: A multivariate lesion-symptom mapping approach
2020, Neuropsychologia
Despite network studies of the human brain have brought consistent evidence of brain regions with diverse functional roles, the neuropsychological approach has mainly focused on the functional specialization of individual brain regions. Relatively few neuropsychological studies try to understand whether the severity of cognitive impairment across multiple cognitive abilities can be related to focal brain injuries. Here we approached this issue by applying a latent variable modeling of the severity of cognitive impairment in brain tumor patients, followed by multivariate lesion-symptom methods identifying brain regions critically involved in multiple cognitive abilities. We observed that lesions in confined left lateral prefrontal areas including the inferior frontal junction produced the most severe cognitive deficits, above and beyond tumor histology. Our findings support the recently suggested integrated albeit modular view of brain functional organization, according to which specific brain regions are highly involved across different sub-networks and subserve a vast range of cognitive abilities. Defining such brain regions is relevant not only theoretically but also clinically, since it may facilitate tailored tumor resections and improve cognitive surgical outcomes.
Neuro-cognitive architecture of executive functions: A latent variable analysis
2019, Cortex
Executive functions refer to high-level cognitive processes that, by operating on lower-level mental processes, flexibly regulate and control our thoughts and goal-directed behavior. Despite their crucial role, the study of the nature and organization of executive functions still faces inherent difficulties. Moreover, most executive function models put under test until now are brain-free models: they are defined and discussed without assumptions regarding the neural bases of executive functions. By using a latent variable approach, here we tested a brain-centered model of executive function organization proposing that two distinct domain-general executive functions, namely, criterion setting and monitoring, may be dissociable both functionally and anatomically, with a left versus right hemispheric preference of prefrontal cortex and related neural networks, respectively. To this end, we tested a sample of healthy participants on a battery of computerized tasks assessing criterion setting and monitoring processes and involving diverse task domains, including the verbal and visuospatial ones, which are well-known to be lateralized. By doing this, we were able to specifically assess the influence of these task domains on the organization of executive functions and to directly contrast a process-based model of EF organization versus both a purely domain-based model and a process-based, but domain-dependent one. The results of confirmatory factor analyses showed that a purely process-based model reliably provided a better fit to the observed data as compared to alternative models, supporting the specific theoretical model that fractionates a subset of executive functions into criterion setting and monitoring with hemispheric specializations emerging regardless of the task domain.
Hemispheric asymmetry in the prefrontal cortex for complex cognition
2019, Handbook of Clinical Neurology
With the exception of language, hemispheric asymmetry has not historically been an important issue in the frontal lobe literature. Data generated over the past 20 years is forcing a reconsideration of this position. There is now considerable evidence to suggest that the left prefrontal cortex is an inference engine that automatically makes simple conceptual, logical, and causal connections to fill in missing information and eliminate uncertainty or indeterminacy. This is a fine-tuning of the “left hemisphere interpreter” account from the callosotomy patient literature. What is new is an understanding of the important contributions of the right prefrontal cortex to formal logical inference, conflict detection, and indeterminacy tolerance and maintenance. This chapter articulates these claims and reviews the data on which they are based.
The chapter concludes by speculating that the inference capabilities of the left prefrontal cortex are built into the very fabric of language and can be accounted for by the left hemisphere dominance for language. The roles of the right PFC require multiple mechanisms for explanation. Its role in formal inference may be a function of its visual–spatial processing capabilities. Its role in conflict detection may be explained as a system for checking for consistency between existing beliefs and new information coming into the system and inferences drawn from beliefs and/or new information. There are at least three possible mechanisms to account for its role in indeterminacy tolerance. First, it could contain a representational system with properties very different from those of language, and an accompanying inference engine. Second, it could just contain this different representational system, and the information is at some point passed back to the left prefrontal cortex for inference. Third, the role of the right prefrontal cortex may be largely preventative. That is, it doesn’t provide alternative representational and inference capabilities but simply prevents the left prefrontal cortex from settling on initial, local inferences. The current data do not allow differentiating between these possibilities. Successful real-world functioning requires the participation of both hemispheres.

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

The neural basis of temporal preparation: Insights from brain tumor patients

Abstract

Section snippets

Assignment to patient group

Excluded trials

Discussion

Acknowledgements

Brain Research Bulletin

Neuropsychologia

Current Opinion in Neurobiology

Acta Psychologica

Acta Psychologica

Neuropsychologia

Behavioural Brain Research

Neuropsychologia

Neuroimage

Neuropsychologia

Neuroimage

Neuropsychologia

Sequential effects of foreperiod duration: some strategical factors in tasks involving time uncertainty.

Motor preparation

Delay of movement caused by disruption of cortical preparatory activity

Journal of Neurophysiology

Design and construction of a realistic digital brain phantom

IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging

The attentional mechanism of temporal orienting: Determinants and attributes

Experimental Brain Research

Where and when to pay attention: The neural systems for directing attention to spatial locations and to time intervals as revealed by both PET and fMRI

The Journal of Neuroscience

Effects of foreperiod, foreperiod variability, and probability of stimulus occurrence on simple reaction time

Journal of Experimental Psychology

Central inhibition: Some refractory observations

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Frontal lobes and human memory: Insights from functional neuroimaging

Brain

Cortical networks underlying mechanisms of time perception

The Journal of Neuroscience

Right prefrontal cortex and episodic memory retrieval: A functional MRI test of the monitoring hypothesis

Brain