Maturation of Brain Function Associated With Response Inhibition

doi:10.1097/00004583-200210000-00013

Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Volume 41, Issue 10, October 2002, Pages 1231-1238

https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-200210000-00013 Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Objective:

To investigate the developmental trajectory of response inhibition and, more specifically, whether there is a dissociation of function in the prefrontal cortex over the course of development of executive function and associated response inhibition abilities.

Method:

Nineteen typically developing subjects, ranging in age from 8 to 20, performed a Go/NoGo task while behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data were collected.

Results:

All subjects performed the task with few errors of omission and commission. No relationship between accuracy and age emerged, but the ability to inhibit responses more quickly significantly improved with age. Analyses of fMRI data revealed a positive correlation between activation and age in the left inferior frontal gyrus/insula/orbitofrontal gyrus, and a negative correlation between activation and age in the left middle/superior frontal gyri.

Conclusions:

These data provide the first evidence of dissociable processes occurring in the prefrontal cortex during development of executive functions associated with response inhibition: (1) Younger subjects activate more extensively than older subjects in discrete regions of the prefrontal cortex, presumably due to increased demands and inefficient recruitment of brain regions subserving executive functions including working memory. (2) Older subjects show increasingly focal activation in specific regions thought to play a more critical role in response inhibition.

Section snippets

Subjects

Nineteen subjects, ranging in age from 8 to 20 (mean age 14.41, SD = 3.08; 8 male), participated in the study after giving written informed consent. These subjects were recruited as typically developing controls for neurodevelopmental studies. Of the 19 subjects, 13 identified themselves as Caucasian, 3 as Asian, 1 as Latino, and 2 did not report their ethnicity. They were all right-handed and were screened for neurological, developmental, and psychiatric disorders via telephone interview with

RESULTSBEHAVIORAL

The primary aim of the behavioral analyses was to examine the relationship, if any, between performance and age. Linear regression analyses were conducted regressing age on performance (accuracy and reaction time). The results of these analyses, as well as means and standard deviations, are reported in Table 1.

BRAIN ACTIVATION

Regression analyses examining which brain areas showed age-related changes were conducted after an initial comparison of brain activation during the experimental condition versus brain activation during the control condition for all subjects (pooled). Finally, a follow-up investigation correlating percent voxels activated and reaction time in two age-related fROIs (for positive and negative activation) was conducted.

DISCUSSION

Our results indicate that there are significant developmental changes associated with the process of response inhibition, as conceptualized by the Go/NoGo task used in this study. Specifically, analyses of behavioral variables obtained during the experimental condition of the task (NoGo – Go) revealed that reaction times significantly decreased with age, indicating more rapid response execution (and therefore more efficient response inhibition) during correct NoGo trials for older subjects.

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: This work was supported by NIH grants HD40761, HD31715, MH01142, MH62430, MH50047, and MH19908 and a fellowship from the Constance Bultman Wilson Foundation. The authors thank Rebecca Allen for assistance with data processing and analysis.

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ARTICLESMaturation of Brain Function Associated With Response Inhibition

ABSTRACT

Objective:

Method:

Results:

Conclusions:

Section snippets

Subjects

RESULTSBEHAVIORAL

BRAIN ACTIVATION

DISCUSSION

J Exp Child Psychol

Brain Res

Neuropsychologia

Brain Res Cogn Brain Res

Brain Res Cogn Brain Res

Neurosci Lett

Neuropsychologia

Neurosci Res

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Behav Brain Res

Neurosci Biobehav Rev

Neuroimage

Neuroimage

Lancet

Cogn Dev

Manual for the Child Behavior Checklist 4-18 and 1991 Profile

Dissociation of mnemonic and perceptual processes during spatial and nonspatial working memory using fMRI

Hum Brain Mapp

Cue significance and response regulation in 3- to 6-year-old children's learning of multiple choice discrimination tasks

Dev Psychobiol

Anterior cingulate cortex and response conflict: effects of frequency, inhibition and errors

Cereb Cortex

Age related changes in inhibitory control as measured by stop-signal task performance

Int J Neurosci

ARTICLES
Maturation of Brain Function Associated With Response Inhibition