Stimulus conflict and stimulus novelty trigger saliency signals in locus coeruleus and anterior cingulate cortex
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1
Ghent University, Belgium
Implementing a goal-directed action in the context of salient interfering inputs is a central cognitive-control function. It has been proposed that conflict detection can act as a saliency signal indicating the need to re-allocate processing resources, e.g., by re-focusing attention on the most relevant information. Similar to biologically salient events, conflict is thought to be signaled by projections between the locus coeruleus (LC) and the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), forming a common “saliency-detection” network. To provide direct evidence for such a system in humans, we probed the concerted activation of LC and ACC by manipulating the novelty/familiarity of picture stimuli in a conflict task (Fig. 1) while acquiring functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. The factorial design allowed us to explore commonalities and potential interactions of “cognitive” saliency (conflict) and implicit perceptual saliency (novelty). Intriguingly, typical conflict-induced response slowing was strongly attenuated in novel-picture trials, which suggests that stimulus novelty can attenuate the influence of conflicting inputs. Consistently, clear conflict-related activity increases in LC and ACC were only observed in familiar-picture trials, whereas the opposite trend was observed for novel-picture trials (Fig. 2). We suggest that this overall activity pattern reflects changes in the relative saliency of the stimuli: whereas conflicting sensory inputs are especially salient in a familiar context, novelty might outweigh the saliency of such inputs due to its biological relevance. Our findings not only provide direct evidence for an involvement of the LC in human conflict processing, but highlight the role of the LC-ACC system in integrating concurrent salient inputs.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Ghent University Multidisciplinary Research Platform “The integrative neuroscience of behavioral control” and a post-doctoral fellowship by the Flemish Research Foundation (FWO11/PDO/016) awarded to RMK.
Keywords:
fMRI,
Locus Coeruleus,
anterior cingulate cortex,
novelty detection,
conflict monitoring
Conference:
Belgian Brain Council, Liège, Belgium, 27 Oct - 27 Oct, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster Presentation
Topic:
Other basic/clinical neurosciences topic
Citation:
Krebs
RM,
Fias
W,
Achten
E and
Boehler
CN
(2012). Stimulus conflict and stimulus novelty trigger saliency signals in locus coeruleus and anterior cingulate cortex.
Conference Abstract:
Belgian Brain Council.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2012.210.00114
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Received:
28 Aug 2012;
Published Online:
12 Sep 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Ruth M Krebs, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, ruthmkrebs@gmail.com