Lesions of anterior cingulate cortex disrupt an electrophysiological signature of goal completion in humans

The reward positivity (RewP) is an event-related brain potential (ERP) component associated with feedback and goal completion. Although the component is said to be generated in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), this inference is disputed because of the inverse problem. Recent intracranial electroencephalogram (EEG) current source density analyses provided direct evidence that the RewP is generated in caudal ACC, specifically Brodmann areas 24c’ and 32’.

To further test this hypothesis, we examined the effects of damage to frontal cortex damage on RewP amplitude. Scalp EEG was recorded from 68 stroke patients with frontal lesions while they performed a trial-and-error guessing task used to elicit a canonical RewP. Non-parametric voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping revealed that damage to Brodmann areas 24c’ and 32’ significantly attenuated RewP amplitude.

These results align with evidence suggesting a single generator of the RewP in the caudal ACC, supporting the role of caudal ACC in motivation of extended behaviors. The authors would like to thank all the participating patients who made this study possible. We would also like to acknowledge Travis Baker for providing the virtual T-maze task code.

This work is part of a project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (grant agreement no. 787307). These authors jointly supervised this work: Veerle De Herdt, Clay B. Holroyd. 4BRAIN Research Group, Department of Head and Skin, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Joyce Oerlemans, Ricardo J.

Holroyd Department of Neurology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium Department of Radiology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium Department of Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium Department of Vascular and Interventional Radiology, Ghent University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium The authors declare no competing interests. Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

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