Performance monitoring and the medial prefrontal cortex: a review of individual differences and context effects as a window on self-regulation

The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is central to self-regulation and has been implicated in generating a cluster of event-related potential components, collectively referred to as medial frontal negativities (MFNs). These MFNs are elicited while individuals monitor behavioral and environmental cons...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in human neuroscience 2012-07, Vol.6, p.197
Main Authors: van Noordt, Stefon J R, Segalowitz, Sidney J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
anterior cingulate
Behavior
Brain research
Cognitive ability
Cortex (cingulate)
ERN
Error correction & detection
Event-related potentials
Feedback
individual differences
Medial prefrontal cortex
Mismatch negativity
Nervous system
Neuroscience
Neurosciences
Performance monitoring
Personality
Prefrontal cortex
Psychiatry
Self-regulation
Teenagers
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Summary:The medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) is central to self-regulation and has been implicated in generating a cluster of event-related potential components, collectively referred to as medial frontal negativities (MFNs). These MFNs are elicited while individuals monitor behavioral and environmental consequences, and include the error-related negativity, Nogo N2, and the feedback-related negativity. A growing cognitive and affective neuroscience literature indicates that the activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and surrounding medial prefrontal regions during performance monitoring is not only influenced by task context, but that these patterns of activity also vary as a function of individual differences (e.g., personality, temperament, clinical and non-clinical symptomatology, socio-political orientation, and genetic polymorphisms), as well as interactions between individual differences and task context. In this review we survey the neuroscience literature on the relations between performance monitoring, personality, task context, and brain functioning with a focus on the MPFC. We relate these issues to the role of affect in the paradigms used to elicit performance-monitoring neural responses and highlight some of the theoretical and clinical implications of this research. We conclude with a discussion of the complexity of these issues and how some of the basic assumptions required for their interpretation may be clarified with future research.
ISSN:1662-5161
1662-5161
DOI:10.3389/fnhum.2012.00197