# Cortical and subcortical neurophysiology in terminating movement

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF OREGON · 2024 · $595,294

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
Our ability to stop and control movements is an integral part of human behavior. This behavior is disrupted in
several disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and
addiction. Previous work has often used motor inhibition tasks such as the stop signal task to study this behavior.
In this task, participants are instructed to respond to a stimuli (such as an arrow) with a button press. On most
trials the response is executed as planned. However, on a minority of trials a second stimuli – a stop signal – is
presented that indicates the participant should attempt to stop their movement. This task, combined with
neuroscientific techniques, has pointed to the importance of a network of cortical and subcortical regions.
However, the stop signal task has several limitations. First, because the stop task requires contrasting successful
stopping with trials that include a response – disentangling motoric cessation of movement from the cognitive
inhibitory component is challenging. Second, although examples of stopping in daily life often focus on stopping
ongoing movements (i.e. stopping walking when you see a car rounding the corner), the traditional stop signal
task focuses on single, discrete, movements. It is unclear if the same neural network and physiological processes
are involved in stopping continuous movements. Finally, the time it takes to stop cannot be calculated for
individual trials and instead is estimated over the entire task, complicating certain analyses/interpretations. To
address these limitations, we have designed a new task. Here participants perform a continuous movement
during a countdown. On the majority of trials, the countdown proceeds to 0 as expected and then a stop signal
appears, but on a minority of trials, the stop signal occurs early and the participant must stop a response before
they expected. In this proposal, participants will perform this novel task while their brain activity is recorded. We
will first use two different approaches to probe both cortical and subcortical activity. First, to examine cortical
activity we will record intracranial electrophysiology from epilepsy patients undergoing invasive monitoring. Then,
to examine subcortical activity (and its influence on cortex) we will record scalp EEG in a special cohort of
Parkinson’s disease patients with deep brain stimulation electrodes implanted in different subcortical nodes
(subthalamic nucleus, STN and globus pallidus interna, GPi). These patients will be tested with their stimulation
turned both on and off to examine the effect of subcortical stimulation of particular nodes on behavior and cortical
activity. Finally, we will establish the ecological validity and clinical reliability of this task by comparing behavioral
measures derived from the task to validated scales of cognition and inhibitory control in a large cohort of controls
and nicotine dependent individuals (smokers). This cohort ...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10775620
- **Project number:** 1R01NS134772-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF OREGON
- **Principal Investigator:** Nicole Christiane Swann
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $595,294
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-12-01 → 2028-11-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10775620

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10775620, Cortical and subcortical neurophysiology in terminating movement (1R01NS134772-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10775620. Licensed CC0.

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