A neurocomputational theory of action regulation predicts motor behavior in neurotypical individuals and patients with Parkinson’s disease

Surviving in an uncertain environment requires not only the ability to select the best action, but also the flexibility to withhold inappropriate actions when the environmental conditions change. Although selecting and withholding actions have been extensively studied in both human and animals, ther...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLoS computational biology 2022-11, Vol.18 (11), p.e1010111-e1010111
Main Authors: Zhong, Shan, Choi, Jeong Woo, Hashoush, Nadia G, Babayan, Diana, Malekmohammadi, Mahsa, Pouratian, Nader, Christopoulos, Vassilios
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biology and Life Sciences
Computational neuroscience
Control theory
Decision making
Environmental changes
Environmental conditions
Health aspects
Hypotheses
Medicine and Health Sciences
Motor ability
Movement disorders
Neurodegenerative diseases
Parkinson's disease
Parkinsons disease
Physiological aspects
Social Sciences
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Summary:Surviving in an uncertain environment requires not only the ability to select the best action, but also the flexibility to withhold inappropriate actions when the environmental conditions change. Although selecting and withholding actions have been extensively studied in both human and animals, there is still lack of consensus on the mechanism underlying these action regulation functions, and more importantly, how they inter-relate. A critical gap impeding progress is the lack of a computational theory that will integrate the mechanisms of action regulation into a unified framework. The current study aims to advance our understanding by developing a neurodynamical computational theory that models the mechanism of action regulation that involves suppressing responses, and predicts how disruption of this mechanism can lead to motor deficits in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients. We tested the model predictions in neurotypical individuals and PD patients in three behavioral tasks that involve free action selection between two opposed directions, action selection in the presence of conflicting information and abandoning an ongoing action when a stop signal is presented. Our results and theory suggest an integrated mechanism of action regulation that affects both action initiation and inhibition. When this mechanism is disrupted, motor behavior is affected, leading to longer reaction times and higher error rates in action inhibition.
ISSN:1553-7358
1553-734X
1553-7358
DOI:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010111