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The influence of subliminal threat cues on successful response inhibition

Catherine Orr1*, Hugh Garavan2, 3, Karen Weierstall2 and Robert Hester1
  • 1 University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, Australia
  • 2 University of Vermont, Psychology, United States
  • 3 Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

The relationship between automatic, threat-related processes and the frontoparietal control network in response inhibition was investigated. It has previously been shown that task irrelevant fearful faces disrupt ongoing task performance, likely due to the need to interrupt or change the planned motor action in response to an unexpected threat signal. It is not clear, however, how this process is related to deliberate response inhibition at a behavioural and neural level. During fMRI, we administered a Go/No-go task in which presentation of the No-go stimulus could be preceded by a subliminally presented face cue. The period following a fearful face cue (cue period) was characterised by a significant increase in reaction time (RT) relative to the cue period following a neutral face. Slowing of RT during the cue period was associated with increased activity in frontal and parietal regions previously implicated in successful response inhibition and motor control, including the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), supplementary motor area (SMA), and cingulate gyrus. Psychophysiological interaction analysis revealed that functional connectivity between the amygdala and PFC was associated with post-cue slowing for fearful cues. These measures were not, however, associated with more successful inhibition performance during fearfully cued blocks than either neutrally cued or uncued blocks. Taken together, our results suggest that threat perception may influence brain systems involved in motor control; although this network partially overlaps with the regions required for voluntary response inhibition, in the current study the action of this network was not sufficient to improve inhibition performance.

Acknowledgements

NHMRC Grant 1008044
ARC Grant DP1092852

References

Hester, R. L., Murphy, K., Foxe, J. J., Foxe, D. M., Javitt, D. C., & Garavan, H. (2004). Predicting success: patterns of cortical activation and deactivation prior to response inhibition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 16(5), 776-785.
Kim, M. J., Loucks, R., Neta, M., Davis, F. C., Oler, J., Mazzulla, E., & Whalen, P. (2010). Behind the mask: the influence of mask-type on amygdala response to fearful faces. Social Cognitive & Affective Neuroscience, 5(4), 363-368.
Sagaspe, P., Schwartz, S., & Vuilleumier, P., (2011). Fear and stop: A role for the amygdala in motor inhibition by emotional signals. Neuroimage, 55(4), 1825-1835.

Keywords: Subliminal threat cues, response inhibition, functional MRI (fMRI), cognitive control, Amygdala

Conference: ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 29 Nov - 2 Dec, 2012.

Presentation Type: Poster Presentation

Topic: Executive Processes

Citation: Orr C, Garavan H, Weierstall K and Hester R (2012). The influence of subliminal threat cues on successful response inhibition. Conference Abstract: ACNS-2012 Australasian Cognitive Neuroscience Conference. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.208.00188

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Received: 14 Oct 2012; Published Online: 17 Nov 2012.

* Correspondence: Dr. Catherine Orr, University of Melbourne, Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia, corr1@uvm.edu