The architecture of multi-component action

A year in research · 25 selected publications · five research threads

In 2015, we asked how people organize several actions at once and identified the strategies, brain systems and individual differences that make this possible.

Rather than treating multitasking as a single capacity, the work distinguished serial and parallel goal activation, sensory integration, response selection and monitoring.

01 · STRATEGY

Different minds organize multiple goals differently

Causal stimulation showed that right inferior frontal cortex helps implement strategies for multi-component behaviour by altering response selection.[1] People differed in their preferred serial or overlapping style yet adapted that style similarly when the situation changed.[2] Conscientiousness explained a substantial share of efficiency differences, suggesting that strategy is linked to stable personal characteristics.[3]

Action-video-game players were faster at action cascading without showing better inhibition, separating multi-component coordination from stopping ability.[4] Mental fatigue likewise evolved from early adaptation into more specific response-selection changes over time.[5]

In plain terms: Multitasking performance reflects how goals are scheduled and selected, not one generic executive resource.

02 · DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Striatum and cortex support complementary processing modes

More parallel dual-task response selection relied on striatum, whereas more serial selection recruited lateral prefrontal cortex.[6] Anticipated sensorimotor transformations engaged caudate mechanisms, and circumscribed medium-spiny-neuron dysfunction impaired cascading when responses competed simultaneously.[7,8] Computational modelling of Huntington's disease pointed to combined direct- and indirect-pathway lesions, rather than dopamine change alone, as a source of learning difficulty.[9]

Deep brain stimulation of external globus pallidus improved response monitoring in Huntington's disease.[10] Resting connectivity and striatal GABA described two partly separate routes to cognitive-control differences, while striatal GABA also predicted premotor inhibition and its cortical synchronization.[11,12]

In plain terms: Parallel and serial action organization draw on complementary cortico-striatal mechanisms whose contribution depends on competition and predictability.

03 · SENSORY AND BODILY INPUT

Action selection inherits the structure of its inputs

Auditory and visual targets could evoke parallel brain responses, limiting the idea of a universal attentional bottleneck.[13] Bimodal versus unimodal input changed how task goals were formed during action cascading.[14] Proprioceptive information also interacted differently with striatal and thalamic GABA during response selection.[15]

Response selection in multidimensional space varied across stimulus dimensions only when selection demands were high.[16] Left dominance for written language appeared already in extrastriate and parietal processing.[17] Handedness was associated with androgen-receptor repeat length, adding a biological source of individual lateralization.[18]

In plain terms: The sensory modality, body state and spatial dimension of information shape how competing actions are selected.

04 · LIMITS AND ERROR

Control fails at identifiable thresholds

Working-memory load changed the evaluative P3 component of inhibition and impaired behaviour only after a threshold was exceeded.[19] In neurosarcoidosis, fatigue was associated with altered conflict monitoring rather than a nonspecific loss of cognition.[20] A broader synthesis treated errors as outputs of interacting perceptual, decision and motor processes that can be used to predict later adaptation.[21]

Adolescents and adults differed in how predictability shaped conflict monitoring, demonstrating that context-action links continue to develop.[22]

In plain terms: Failure becomes interpretable when workload, prediction and the specific processing stage are measured together.

05 · CLINICAL TRANSLATION

Mechanism guides intervention

In premanifest Huntington's disease, attentional selection declined while some neural-plasticity effects were enhanced, showing that neurodegeneration can have divergent cognitive consequences.[23] A review of autism organized action-control findings around neurobiology and the use of prior experience.[24]

For Tourette syndrome, neurofeedback was proposed as a targeted option, particularly when ADHD comorbidity contributes to control difficulties.[25] Across these areas, translation depended on matching intervention to a defined circuit and operation.

In plain terms: Treatments become more credible when they target a specified mechanism rather than a broad diagnostic label.

What 2015 added up to

The 2015 work described multi-component action as an architecture of strategies and interacting systems. It showed how striatum, prefrontal cortex, sensory input and personality jointly determine whether several goals can be coordinated efficiently.

Selected publications

Curated from PubMed records returned for Beste C[au] in 2015. Citation numbers in the story link to entries below. DOI links open the publisher landing page; PubMed links open the indexed record.

1. A causal role of the right inferior frontal cortex in implementing strategies for multi-component behaviour.

Dippel G, Beste C. Nature communications. 2015;6:6587.

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7587   ·   PubMed

2. Different strategies, but indifferent strategy adaptation during action cascading.

Mückschel M, Stock AK, Beste C. Scientific reports. 2015;5:9992.

DOI: 10.1038/srep09992   ·   PubMed

3. Conscientiousness increases efficiency of multicomponent behavior.

Stock AK, Beste C. Scientific reports. 2015;5:15731.

DOI: 10.1038/srep15731   ·   PubMed

4. Action Video Gaming and Cognitive Control: Playing First Person Shooter Games Is Associated with Improved Action Cascading but Not Inhibition.

Steenbergen L, Sellaro R, Stock AK, Beste C, Colzato LS. PloS one. 2015;10(12):e0144364.

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0144364   ·   PubMed

5. The Effects of Time on Task in Response Selection--An ERP Study of Mental Fatigue.

Möckel T, Beste C, Wascher E. Scientific reports. 2015;5:10113.

DOI: 10.1038/srep10113   ·   PubMed

6. Parallel and serial processing in dual-tasking differentially involves mechanisms in the striatum and the lateral prefrontal cortex.

Yildiz A, Beste C. Brain structure & function. 2015;220(6):3131-42.

DOI: 10.1007/s00429-014-0847-0   ·   PubMed

7. Complex sensorimotor transformation processes required for response selection are facilitated by the striatum.

Stock AK, Ness V, Beste C. NeuroImage. 2015;123:33-41.

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.08.036   ·   PubMed

8. Action selection in a possible model of striatal medium spiny neuron dysfunction: behavioral and EEG data in a patient with benign hereditary chorea.

Beste C, Saft C. Brain structure & function. 2015;220(1):221-8.

DOI: 10.1007/s00429-013-0649-9   ·   PubMed

9. Combined lesions of direct and indirect basal ganglia pathways but not changes in dopamine levels explain learning deficits in patients with Huntington's disease.

Schroll H, Beste C, Hamker FH. The European journal of neuroscience. 2015;41(9):1227-44.

DOI: 10.1111/ejn.12868   ·   PubMed

10. Behavioral and neurophysiological evidence for the enhancement of cognitive control under dorsal pallidal deep brain stimulation in Huntington's disease.

Beste C, Mückschel M, Elben S, J Hartmann C, et al.. Brain structure & function. 2015;220(4):2441-8.

DOI: 10.1007/s00429-014-0805-x   ·   PubMed

11. Interrelation of resting state functional connectivity, striatal GABA levels, and cognitive control processes.

Haag L, Quetscher C, Dharmadhikari S, Dydak U, Schmidt-Wilcke T, Beste C. Human brain mapping. 2015;36(11):4383-93.

DOI: 10.1002/hbm.22920   ·   PubMed

12. Striatal GABA-MRS predicts response inhibition performance and its cortical electrophysiological correlates.

Quetscher C, Yildiz A, Dharmadhikari S, Glaubitz B, Schmidt-Wilcke T, Dydak U, Beste C. Brain structure & function. 2015;220(6):3555-64.

DOI: 10.1007/s00429-014-0873-y   ·   PubMed

13. Concurrent brain responses to separate auditory and visual targets.

Finoia P, Mitchell DJ, Hauk O, Beste C, Pizzella V, Duncan J. Journal of neurophysiology. 2015;114(2):1239-47.

DOI: 10.1152/jn.01050.2014   ·   PubMed

14. The importance of sensory integration processes for action cascading.

Gohil K, Stock AK, Beste C. Scientific reports. 2015;5:9485.

DOI: 10.1038/srep09485   ·   PubMed

15. Striatal and thalamic GABA level concentrations play differential roles for the modulation of response selection processes by proprioceptive information.

Dharmadhikari S, Ma R, Yeh CL, Stock AK, et al.. NeuroImage. 2015;120:36-42.

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.06.066   ·   PubMed

16. Psychophysiological mechanisms underlying response selection in multidimensional space.

Mückschel M, Beste C. Scientific reports. 2015;5:7759.

DOI: 10.1038/srep07759   ·   PubMed

17. Left dominance for language perception starts in the extrastriate cortex: An ERP and sLORETA study.

Selpien H, Siebert C, Genc E, Beste C, Faustmann PM, Güntürkün O, Ocklenburg S. Behavioural brain research. 2015;291:325-333.

DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.05.050   ·   PubMed

18. Handedness and the X chromosome: the role of androgen receptor CAG-repeat length.

Arning L, Ocklenburg S, Schulz S, Ness V, et al.. Scientific reports. 2015;5:8325.

DOI: 10.1038/srep08325   ·   PubMed

19. The impact of mental workload on inhibitory control subprocesses.

Chmielewski WX, Mückschel M, Stock AK, Beste C. NeuroImage. 2015;112:96-104.

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.02.060   ·   PubMed

20. Effects of fatigue on cognitive control in neurosarcoidosis.

Beste C, Kneiphof J, Woitalla D. European neuropsychopharmacology : the journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. 2015;25(4):522-30.

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroneuro.2015.01.012   ·   PubMed

21. A perspective on neural and cognitive mechanisms of error commission.

Hoffmann S, Beste C. Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience. 2015;9:50.

DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2015.00050   ·   PubMed

22. Predictability and context determine differences in conflict monitoring between adolescence and adulthood.

Chmielewski WX, Roessner V, Beste C. Behavioural brain research. 2015;292:10-8.

DOI: 10.1016/j.bbr.2015.05.054   ·   PubMed

23. Evidence for divergent effects of neurodegeneration in Huntington's disease on attentional selection and neural plasticity: implications for excitotoxicity.

Beste C, Stock AK, Ness V, Hoffmann R, Saft C. Brain structure & function. 2015;220(3):1437-47.

DOI: 10.1007/s00429-014-0735-7   ·   PubMed

24. Action control processes in autism spectrum disorder--insights from a neurobiological and neuroanatomical perspective.

Chmielewski WX, Beste C. Progress in neurobiology. 2015;124:49-83.

DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2014.11.002   ·   PubMed

25. Neurofeedback and its possible relevance for the treatment of Tourette syndrome.

Farkas A, Bluschke A, Roessner V, Beste C. Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews. 2015;51:87-99.

DOI: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.01.012   ·   PubMed