Separate neural systems for behavioral change and for emotional responses to failure during behavioral inhibition

To analyze the involvement of different brain regions in behavioral inhibition and impulsiveness, differences in activation were investigated in fMRI data from a response inhibition task, the stop-signal task, in 1709 participants. First, areas activated more in stop-success than stop-failure included the lateral orbitofrontal cortex extending into the inferior frontal gyrus (ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, BA 47/12), and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Second, the anterior cingulate and anterior insula were activated more on failure trials, specifically in stop-failure vs stop-success. The interaction between brain region and stop-success vs stop-failure activations was significant (p = 5.6 * 10-8). The results provide new evidence from this ‘big data’ investigation consistent with the hypotheses that the lateral orbitofrontal cortex is involved in the stop-related processing that inhibits the action; that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is involved in attentional processes that influence task performance; and that the anterior insula and anterior cingulate are involved in emotional processes when failure occurs. The investigation thus emphasizes the role of the human lateral orbitofrontal cortex BA 47/12 in changing behavior, and inhibiting behavior when necessary. A very similar area in BA47/12 is involved in changing behavior when an expected reward is not obtained, and has been shown to have high functional connectivity in depression.