The neurophysiology of continuous action monitoring
Saskia Wilken,
Adriana Böttcher,
Nico Adelhöfer,
Markus Raab,
Sven Hoffmann,
Christian Beste
Affiliations
Saskia Wilken
General Psychology: Judgment, Decision Making, and Action, Institute of Psychology, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Adriana Böttcher
Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany; University Neuropsychology Center, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany
Nico Adelhöfer
Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany; Donders Institute of Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Markus Raab
Performance Psychology, Institute of Psychology, German Sport University Cologne, Cologne, Germany; School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University, London, UK
Sven Hoffmann
General Psychology: Judgment, Decision Making, and Action, Institute of Psychology, University of Hagen, Hagen, Germany
Christian Beste
Cognitive Neurophysiology, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany; University Neuropsychology Center, Faculty of Medicine, TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany; Corresponding author
Summary: Monitoring actions is essential for goal-directed behavior. However, as opposed to short-lasting, and regularly reinstating monitoring functions, the neural processes underlying continuous action monitoring are poorly understood. We investigate this using a pursuit-tracking paradigm. We show that beta band activity likely maintains the sensorimotor program, while theta and alpha bands probably support attentional sampling and information gating, respectively. Alpha and beta band activity are most relevant during the initial tracking period, when sensorimotor calibrations are most intense. Theta band shifts from parietal to frontal cortices throughout tracking, likely reflecting a shift in the functional relevance from attentional sampling to action monitoring. This study shows that resource allocation mechanisms in prefrontal areas and stimulus-response mapping processes in the parietal cortex are crucial for adapting sensorimotor processes. It fills a knowledge gap in understanding the neural processes underlying action monitoring and suggests new directions for examining sensorimotor integration in more naturalistic experiments.
