TY - JOUR T1 - Unconscious Activation of the Prefrontal No-Go Network JF - The Journal of Neuroscience JO - J. Neurosci. SP - 4143 LP - 4150 DO - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2992-09.2010 VL - 30 IS - 11 AU - Simon van Gaal AU - K. Richard Ridderinkhof AU - H. Steven Scholte AU - Victor A. F. Lamme Y1 - 2010/03/17 UR - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/30/11/4143.abstract N2 - Cognitive control processes involving prefrontal cortex allow humans to overrule and inhibit habitual responses to optimize performance in new and challenging situations, and traditional views hold that cognitive control is tightly linked with consciousness. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate to what extent unconscious “no-go” stimuli are capable of reaching cortical areas involved in inhibitory control, particularly the inferior frontal cortex (IFC) and the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA). Participants performed a go/no-go task that included conscious (weakly masked) no-go trials, unconscious (strongly masked) no-go trials, as well as go trials. Replicating typical neuroimaging findings, response inhibition on conscious no-go stimuli was associated with a (mostly right-lateralized) frontoparietal “inhibition network.” Here, we demonstrate, however, that an unconscious no-go stimulus also can activate prefrontal control networks, most prominently the IFC and the pre-SMA. Moreover, if it does so, it brings about a substantial slowdown in the speed of responding, as if participants attempted to inhibit their response but just failed to withhold it completely. Interestingly, overall activation in this “unconscious inhibition network” correlated positively with the amount of slowdown triggered by unconscious no-go stimuli. In addition, neural differences between conscious and unconscious control are revealed. These results expand our understanding of the limits and depths of unconscious information processing in the human brain and demonstrate that prefrontal cognitive control functions are not exclusively influenced by conscious information. ER -