The human frontal operculum is involved in visuomotor performance monitoring

Abstract

AbstractFor adaptive goal-directed action, the brain needs to monitor action performance and detect errors. The corresponding information may be conveyed via different sensory modalities; for instance, visual and proprioceptive body position cues may inform about current manual action performance. Thereby, contextual factors such as the current task set may also determine the relative importance of each sensory modality for action guidance. Here, we analysed human behavioral, fMRI, and MEG data from two VR-based hand-target phase matching studies to identify the neuronal correlates of performance monitoring and error processing under instructed visual or proprioceptive task sets. Our main result was a general, modality-independent response of the bilateral FO to poor phase matching accuracy, as evident from increased BOLD signal and increased gamma power. Furthermore, functional connectivity of the bilateral FO to the right PPC increased under a visual vs proprioceptive task set. These findings suggest that the bilateral FO generally monitors manual action performance; and, moreover, that when visual action feedback is used to guide action, the FO may signal an increased need for control to visuomotor regions in the right PPC following errors.