Induced emotion counter-regulation affects attentional inhibition of emotional information: ERP evidence from a randomized manipulation approach.

Automatic emotion counter-regulation refers to an unintentional attentional shift away from the current emotional state and toward information of the opposite valence. It is a useful emotion regulation skill that prevents the escalation of current emotional state. However, the cognitive mechanisms of emotion counter-regulation are not fully understood. Using a randomization approach, this study investigated how automatic emotion counter-regulation impacted attentional inhibition of emotional stimuli, an important aspect of emotion processing closely associated with emotion regulation and mental health. Forty-six university students were randomly assigned to an emotion counter-regulation group and a control group. The former group watched an anger-inducing video to evoke automatic emotion counter-regulation of anger, while the latter group watched an emotionally neutral video. Next, both groups completed a negative priming task of facial expressions with EEG recorded. In the emotion counter-regulation group, we observed an enhanced attentional inhibition of the angry, but not happy, faces, as indicated by a prolonger response time, a larger N2, and a smaller P3 in response to angry versus happy stimuli. These patterns were not observed in the control group, supporting the role of elicited emotion counter-regulation of anger in causing these modulation patterns in responses.

Event-related potential correlates of implicit processing of own- and other-race faces in children.

Human adults typically experience difficulties in recognizing and discriminating individual faces belonging to racial groups other than their own. The origin of this "other-race" effect is set in infancy, but the understanding of its developmental course is fragmented. We aimed to access the mechanisms of the other-race effect in childhood by unraveling the neural time course of own- and other-race face processing during a masked priming paradigm. White 6- and 7-year-old children (N = 19) categorized fully visible Asian (other-race) or White (own-race) target faces according to gender. Target faces were preceded by masked same-identity or different-identity prime faces, matching the target for race and gender. We showed an early priming effect on the N100 component, with larger amplitude to different-face pairs than to same-face pairs, and a later race effect on the N200 component, with larger amplitude to own-race face pairs than to other-race face pairs. Critically, race did not interact with priming at any processing stage (P100, N100, P200, N200, or P300). Our results suggest that race could have a temporally limited impact on face processing and that the implicit and unconscious identity processing of own- and other-race faces could be similar in 6- and 7-year-olds, depicting an immature other-race effect during childhood.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with increased engagement of frontal brain regions across multiple event-related potentials.

BACKGROUND: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric condition leading to significant distress and poor quality of life. Successful treatment of OCD is restricted by the limited knowledge about its pathophysiology. This study aimed to investigate the pathophysiology of OCD using electroencephalographic (EEG) event-related potentials (ERPs), elicited from multiple tasks to characterise disorder-related differences in underlying brain activity across multiple neural processes. METHODS: ERP data were obtained from 25 OCD patients and 27 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HCs) by recording EEG during flanker and go/nogo tasks. Error-related negativity (ERN) was elicited by the flanker task, while N200 and P300 were generated using the go/nogo task. Primary comparisons of the neural response amplitudes and the topographical distribution of neural activity were conducted using scalp field differences across all time points and electrodes. RESULTS: Compared to HCs, the OCD group showed altered ERP distributions. Contrasting with the previous literature on ERN and N200 topographies in OCD where fronto-central negative voltages were reported, we detected positive voltages. Additionally, the P300 was found to be less negative in the frontal regions. None of these ERP findings were associated with OCD symptom severity. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that individuals with OCD show altered frontal neural activity across multiple executive function-related processes, supporting the frontal dysfunction theory of OCD. Furthermore, due to the lack of association between altered ERPs and OCD symptom severity, they may be considered potential candidate endophenotypes for OCD.

Electrophysiological and neuropsychological assessment of cognition in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 patients: a pilot study.

BACKGROUND: Event-related potentials (ERPs) reflect cognitive processing: negative early components (N100, N200) are involved in the sensory and perceptual processing of a stimulus, whereas late positive component P300 requires conscious attention. Both neuropsychological and affective disorders are present in patients with spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA1), but the underlying mechanisms need further clarification. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this pilot study, we assessed cognitive processing by recording auditory ERPs in 16 consecutive SCA1 patients and 16 healthy controls (HC) matched for age and sex. Motor and nonmotor symptoms were evaluated using the Scale for the Assessment and Rating of Ataxia (SARA) and an extensive neuropsychological battery. ERPs were recorded using an oddball paradigm, and peak latency and amplitude of N100, N200, and P300 were measured in the averaged responses to target tones. RESULTS: We found in SCA1 significantly increased latencies of N200 and P300 (p=0.033, p=0.007) and decreased amplitudes of N100 and P300 (p=0.024, p=0.038) compared with HC. Furthermore, P300 latency had the highest AUC in the discrimination of SCA1 in ROC analysis. The expansion of trinucleotide repeats correlated with P300 latency (r=-0.607, p=0.048), whereas both P300 and N100 amplitudes correlated with the severity of motor symptoms (r=-0.692, p=0.003; r=-0.621; p=0.010). Significant correlations between P300 latency and the scores of Emotion Attribution Task (r=-0.633, p=0.027), as well as between N200 latency and the scores of Frontal Assessment Battery and Stroop test (r=-0.520, p=0.047; r=0.538, p=0.039), were observed. CONCLUSIONS: This research provides for the first time an extensive characterization of ERPs as useful electrophysiological markers to identify early cognitive dysfunction in SCA1.

The Event-Related Potentials Responding to Outcome Valence and Expectancy Violation during Feedback Processing.

Feedback-related negativity (FRN) is believed to encode reward prediction error (RPE), a term describing whether the outcome is better or worse than expected. However, some studies suggest that it may reflect unsigned prediction error (UPE) instead. Some disagreement remains as to whether FRN is sensitive to the interaction of outcome valence and prediction error (PE) or merely responsive to the absolute size of PE. Moreover, few studies have compared FRN in appetitive and aversive domains to clarify the valence effect or examine PE's quantitative modulation. To investigate the impact of valence and parametrical PE on FRN, we varied the prediction and feedback magnitudes within a probabilistic learning task in valence (gain and loss domains, Experiment 1) and non-valence contexts (pure digits, Experiment 2). Experiment 3 was identical to Experiment 1 except that some blocks emphasized outcome valence, while others highlighted predictive accuracy. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed a UPE encoder; Experiment 3 found an RPE encoder when valence was emphasized and a UPE encoder when predictive accuracy was highlighted. In this investigation, we demonstrate that FRN is sensitive to outcome valence and expectancy violation, exhibiting a preferential response depending on the dimension that is emphasized.

Effect of Static Posture on Online Performance of P300-Based BCIs for TV Control.

To implement a practical brain-computer interface (BCI) for daily use, continuing changes in postures while performing daily tasks must be considered in the design of BCIs. To examine whether the performance of a BCI could depend on postures, we compared the online performance of P300-based BCIs built to select TV channels when subjects took sitting, recline, supine, and right lateral recumbent postures during BCI use. Subjects self-reported the degrees of interference, comfort, and familiarity after BCI control in each posture. We found no significant difference in the BCI performance as well as the amplitude and latency of P300 and N200 among the four postures. However, when we compared BCI accuracy outcomes normalized within individuals between two cases where subjects reported relatively more positively or more negatively about using the BCI in a particular posture, we found higher BCI accuracy in those postures for which individual subjects reported more positively. As a result, although the change of postures did not affect the overall performance of P300-based BCIs, the BCI performance varied depending on the degree of postural comfort felt by individual subjects. Our results suggest considering the postural comfort felt by individual BCI users when using a P300-based BCI at home.

[Influence of the concrete and abstract graphs on N200 and P300 potentials].

Increasing the amplitude of event-related potential is one of the key methods to improve the accuracy of the potential-based brain-computer interface, e.g., P300-based brain-computer interface. The brain-computer interface systems often use symbols or controlled objects as vision stimuli, but what visual stimuli can induce more obvious event-related potential is still unknown. This paper designed three kinds of visual stimuli, i.e., a square, an arrow, and a robot attached with an arrow, to analyze the influence of concreteness degree of the graph on the N200 and P300 potentials, and applied a support vector machine to compare the performance of the brain-computer interface under different stimuli. The results showed that, compared with the square, the robot attached with arrow and the arrow both induced larger N200 potential ( P = 1.6 × 10 -3, P = 4.2 × 10 -2) and longer P300 potential ( P = 2.2 × 10 -3, P = 1.9 × 10 -2) in the frontal area, but the amplitude under the arrow condition is smaller than the one under the robot attached with arrow condition. The robot attached with arrow increased the N200 potential amplitude of the square and arrow from 3.12 µV and 5.19 µV to 7.21 µV ( P = 1.6 × 10 -3, P = 8.9 × 10 -2), and improved the accuracy rate from 59.95%, 61.67% to 74.45% ( P = 2.1 × 10 -2, P = 1.6 × 10 -2), and the information transfer rate from 35.00 bits/min, 35.98 bits/min to 56.71 bits/min ( P = 2.6 × 10 -2, P = 1.6 × 10 -2). This study shows that the concreteness of graphics could affect the N200 potential and the P300 potential. The abstract symbol could represent the meaning and evoke potentials, but the information contained in the concrete robot attached with an arrow is more correlated with the human experience, which is helpful to improve the amplitude. The results may provide new sight in modifying the stimulus interface of the brain-computer interface.

Differentiating emotion-label words and emotion-laden words in emotion conflict: an ERP study.

Despite recent increased attention to emotion conflict, little is known about whether emotion-label words (e.g., sadness, happiness) and emotion-laden words (e.g., death, birthday) function similarly in emotion conflict (i.e., a conflict between the target and distractor in emotion involvement), because the majority of the previous studies implicitly mixed the two. The present study aimed to compare emotion-label words and emotion-laden words in emotion conflict using a flanker task. Specifically, participants (N = 21) were asked to judge the valence of the target words that were vertically surrounded by the words with same (congruent) or different (incongruent) valence as being negative or positive. The behavioral results suggested that negative emotion-laden words were processed faster and more accurately than negative emotion-label words. ERP data further showed that negative emotion-label words elicited larger N200 than negative emotion-laden words on the left hemisphere, while such a difference was found for positive words on the right hemisphere. Moreover, emotion-laden words elicited smaller N200 in the incongruent condition than in the congruent condition, whereas no such a distinction was observed for emotion-label words. The findings suggest different cognitive and neural correlates of emotion-label words and emotion-laden words in emotion conflict.

Influence of speakers' gaze on situated language comprehension: Evidence from Event-Related Potentials.

Behavioral studies have shown that speaker gaze to objects in a co-present scene can influence listeners' sentence comprehension. To gain deeper insight into the mechanisms involved in gaze processing and integration, we conducted two ERP experiments (N = 30, Age: [18, 32] and [19, 33] respectively). Participants watched a centrally positioned face performing gaze actions aligned to utterances comparing two out of three displayed objects. They were asked to judge whether the sentence was true given the provided scene. We manipulated the second gaze cue to be either Congruent (baseline), Incongruent or Averted (Exp1)/Mutual (Exp2). When speaker gaze is used to form lexical expectations about upcoming referents, we found an attenuated N200 when phonological information confirms these expectations (Congruent). Similarly, we observed attenuated N400 amplitudes when gaze-cued expectations (Congruent) facilitate lexical retrieval. Crucially, only a violation of gaze-cued lexical expectations (Incongruent) leads to a P600 effect, suggesting the necessity to revise the mental representation of the situation. Our results support the hypothesis that gaze is utilized above and beyond simply enhancing a cued object's prominence. Rather, gaze to objects leads to their integration into the mental representation of the situation before they are mentioned.

Enhanced neural and behavioural processing of a nonnative phonemic contrast in professional musicians.

Based on growing evidence suggesting that professional music training facilitates foreign language perception and learning, we examined the impact of musical expertise on the categorisation of syllables including phonemes that did (/p/, /b/) or did not (/ph /) belong to the French repertoire by analysing both behaviour (error rates and reaction times) and Event-Related brain Potentials (N200 and P300 components). Professional musicians and nonmusicians categorised syllables either as /ba/ or /pa/ (voicing task), or as /pa/ or /ph a/ with /ph / being a nonnative phoneme for French speakers (aspiration task). In line with our hypotheses, results showed that musicians outperformed nonmusicians in the aspiration task but not in the voicing task. Moreover, the difference between the native (/p/) and the nonnative phoneme (/ph /), as reflected in N200 and P300 amplitudes, was larger in musicians than in nonmusicians in the aspiration task but not in the voicing task. These results show that behaviour and brain activity associated to nonnative phoneme perception are influenced by musical expertise and that these effects are task-dependent. The implications of these findings for current models of phoneme perception and for understanding the qualitative and quantitative differences found on the N200 and P300 components are discussed.

Correlation of cue-locked FRN and feedback-locked FRN in the auditory monetary incentive delay task.

Reflecting the discrepancy between received and predicted outcomes, the reward prediction error (RPE) plays an important role in learning in a dynamic environment. A number of studies suggested that the feedback-related negativity (FRN) component of an event-related potential, known to be associated with unexpected outcomes, encodes RPEs. While FRN was clearly shown to be sensitive to the probability of outcomes, the effect of outcome magnitude on FRN remains to be further clarified. In studies on the neural underpinnings of reward anticipation and outcome evaluation, a monetary incentive delay (MID) task proved to be particularly useful. We investigated whether feedback-locked FRN and cue-locked dN200 responses recorded during an auditory MID task were sensitive to the probability and magnitude of outcomes. The cue-locked dN200 is associated with the update of information about the magnitude of prospective outcomes. Overall, we showed that feedback-locked FRN was modulated by both the magnitude and the probability of outcomes during an auditory version of MID task, whereas no such effect was found for cue-locked dN200. Furthermore, the cue-locked dN200, which is associated with the update of information about the magnitude of prospective outcomes, correlated with the standard feedback-locked FRN, which is associated with a negative RPE. These results further expand our knowledge on the interplay between the processing of predictive cues that forecast future outcomes and the subsequent revision of these predictions during outcome delivery.

Peculiarities of Cyto- and Chemoarchitectonics of Human Entorhinal Cortex during the Fetal Period.

We studied peculiarities of the structure of human entorhinal cortex at weeks 20-26 of gestation (10 hemispheres). The samples were Nissl-stained and immunohistochemically treated with antibodies to parvalbumin, calretinin, calbindin, and cytoskeleton proteins (MAP2 and N200). 3D-reconstruction of the entorhinal cortex from serial sections was performed, caudomedial and rostrolateral areas were isolated. Parvalbumin+ cells in layer I, discrete distribution of layer II cells with colocalization of MAP2 and calretinin at the border with layer I, and two sublayers Va and Vb with MAP2+ neurons were typical for the caudomedial area. Rostrolateral area was characterized by the homogenous layer II with big amount of cells, high density of MAP2+ neurons only in layer III, and the unique layer V. Reelin+ Cajal-Retzius cells and N200+ fiber plexus in layer I were observed in the caudomedial and rostrolateral areas of the entorhial cortex. Layer IV was represented by a cell-free desiccant.

Filling the void-enriching the feature space of successful stopping.

The ability to inhibit behavior is crucial for adaptation in a fast changing environment and is commonly studied with the stop signal task. Current EEG research mainly focuses on the N200 and P300 ERPs and corresponding activity in the theta and delta frequency range, thereby leaving us with a limited understanding of the mechanisms of response inhibition. Here, 15 functional networks were estimated from time-frequency transformed EEG recorded during processing of a visual stop signal task. Cortical sources underlying these functional networks were reconstructed, and a total of 45 features, each representing spectrally and temporally coherent activity, were extracted to train a classifier to differentiate between go and stop trials. A classification accuracy of 85.55% for go and 83.85% for stop trials was achieved. Features capturing fronto-central delta- and theta activity, parieto-occipital alpha, fronto-central as well as right frontal beta activity were highly discriminating between trial-types. However, only a single network, comprising a feature defined by oscillatory activity below 12 Hz, was associated with a generator in the opercular region of the right inferior frontal cortex and showed the expected associations with behavioral inhibition performance. This study pioneers by providing a detailed ranking of neural features regarding their information content for stop and go differentiation at the single-trial level, and may further be the first to identify a scalp EEG marker of the inhibitory control network. This analysis allows for the characterization of the temporal dynamics of response inhibition by matching electrophysiological phenomena to cortical generators and behavioral inhibition performance. Hum Brain Mapp 38:1333-1346, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Juxtaposing the real-time unfolding of subjective experience and ERP neuromarker dynamics.

Electroencephalographic (EEG) potentials have remained a valuable source of data and theories concerning neural correlates of consciousness (NCC). The EEG based methods are far from being exhausted and are continually valuable in the quest for the markers of NCC. To set the background for the research presented in this issue, we review the published work on EEG-based markers of NCC. The article is organized according to the principle of the time-course aspect of brain potentials with regard to the stimuli for which subject's awareness is experimentally measured and/or manipulated. We treat brain potentials as the principal dependent measure as well as independent variable. More specifically, we also draw attention to the fact that in the overwhelming share of studies relative negativization of the ERPs tends to mark NCC.

fMRI-constrained source analysis reveals early top-down modulations of interference processing using a flanker task.

Usually, incongruent flanker stimuli provoke conflict processing whereas congruent flankers should facilitate task performance. Various behavioral studies reported improved or even absent conflict processing with correctly oriented selective attention. In the present study we attempted to reinvestigate these behavioral effects and to disentangle neuronal activity patterns underlying the attentional cueing effect taking advantage of a combination of the high temporal resolution of Electroencephalographic (EEG) and the spatial resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Data from 20 participants were acquired in different sessions per method. We expected the conflict-related N200 event-related potential (ERP) component and areas associated with flanker processing to show validity-specific modulations. Additionally, the spatio-temporal dynamics during cued flanker processing were examined using an fMRI-constrained source analysis approach. In the ERP data we found early differences in flanker processing between validity levels. An early centro-parietal relative positivity for incongruent stimuli occurred only with valid cueing during the N200 time window, while a subsequent fronto-central negativity was specific to invalidly cued interference processing. The source analysis additionally pointed to separate neural generators of these effects. Regional sources in visual areas were involved in conflict processing with valid cueing, while a regional source in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) seemed to contribute to the ERP differences with invalid cueing. Moreover, the ACC and precentral gyrus demonstrated an early and a late phase of congruency-related activity differences with invalid cueing. We discuss the first effect to reflect conflict detection and response activation while the latter more likely originated from conflict monitoring and control processes during response competition.

Is empathy necessary to comprehend the emotional faces? The empathic effect on attentional mechanisms (eye movements), cortical correlates (N200 event-related potentials) and facial behaviour (electromyography) in face processing.

The present research explored the effect of social empathy on processing emotional facial expressions. Previous evidence suggested a close relationship between emotional empathy and both the ability to detect facial emotions and the attentional mechanisms involved. A multi-measure approach was adopted: we investigated the association between trait empathy (Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale) and individuals' performance (response times; RTs), attentional mechanisms (eye movements; number and duration of fixations), correlates of cortical activation (event-related potential (ERP) N200 component), and facial responsiveness (facial zygomatic and corrugator activity). Trait empathy was found to affect face detection performance (reduced RTs), attentional processes (more scanning eye movements in specific areas of interest), ERP salience effect (increased N200 amplitude), and electromyographic activity (more facial responses). A second important result was the demonstration of strong, direct correlations among these measures. We suggest that empathy may function as a social facilitator of the processes underlying the detection of facial emotion, and a general "facial response effect" is proposed to explain these results. We assumed that empathy influences cognitive and the facial responsiveness, such that empathic individuals are more skilful in processing facial emotion.

The time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing.

Cognitive conflict resolution is critical to human survival in a rapidly changing environment. However, emotional conflict processing seems to be particularly important for human interactions. This study examined whether the time course of attentional modulation on emotional conflict processing was different from cognitive conflict processing during a flanker task. Results showed that emotional N200 and P300 effects, similar to colour conflict processing, appeared only during the relevant task. However, the emotional N200 effect preceded the colour N200 effect, indicating that emotional conflict can be identified earlier than cognitive conflict. Additionally, a significant emotional N100 effect revealed that emotional valence differences could be perceived during early processing based on rough aspects of input. The present data suggest that emotional conflict processing is modulated by top-down attention, similar to cognitive conflict processing (reflected by N200 and P300 effects). However, emotional conflict processing seems to have more time advantages during two different processing stages.

How Much We Think of Ourselves and How Little We Think of Others: An Investigation of the Neuronal Signature of Self-Consciousness between Different Personality Traits through an Event-Related Potential Study.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have revealed that self-related tasks (items) receive more attention than non-self-related, and that they elicit event-related potential (ERP) components with larger amplitudes. Since personality has been reported as one of the biological correlates influencing these components, as well as our behavioural differences, it is important to examine how it affects our self-consciousness in relation to tasks of varied relevance and the neurological basis. METHODS: A total of 33 male and female undergraduate Malaysian medical students of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) participated in the study. The participants were divided into two groups, Ambivert (n = 18) and Extravert (n = 15) groups, using the USM personality inventory questionnaire. In the ERP experiment, squares containing standard stimuli of any word other than self and non-self-related nouns (e.g., Bola, Gigi, Anak, etc.; in English: Ball, Teeth, Kids, etc., respectively), those containing self-related pronouns (Saya, Kami or Kita; in English: I, Us or We, respectively), and non-self-related pronouns (Dia, Anda or Mereka; in English: He/She, You or They, respectively), were shown 58%, 21% and 21% of the time, respectively, in a three-stimulus visual oddball paradigm. All words were presented in Bahasa Melayu. The participants were instructed to press 1 for self and 2 for non-self, and ignore standard stimuli. RESULTS: Comparison of both N200 and P300 amplitudes for self-related and non-self-related pronouns in the Extravert group revealed significant differences at seven electrode sites, with self-related having larger amplitude at anterior electrodes and less at posterior. This was not seen in the Ambivert group. CONCLUSION: The present study suggests that self-relevant pronouns are psychologically more important to extraverts than to ambiverts; hence, they have more self-awareness. This may be due to large amount of dopamine in the brains of extraverts, which is more concentrated in the frontal lobe.

Ad-hoc and context-dependent adjustments of selective attention in conflict control: an ERP study with visual probes.

Cognitive conflict control in flanker tasks has often been described using the zoom-lens metaphor of selective attention. However, whether and how selective attention - in terms of suppression and enhancement - operates in this context has remained unclear. To examine the dynamic interplay of selective attention and cognitive control we used electrophysiological measures and presented task-irrelevant visual probe stimuli at foveal, parafoveal, and peripheral display positions. Target-flanker congruency varied either randomly from trial to trial (mixed-block) or block-wise (fixed-block) in order to induce reactive versus proactive control modes, respectively. Three EEG measures were used to capture ad-hoc adjustments within trials as well as effects of context-based predictions: the N1 component of the visual evoked potential (VEP) to probes, the VEP to targets, and the conflict-related midfrontal N2 component. Results from probe-VEPs indicate that enhanced processing of the foveal target rather than suppression of the peripheral flankers supports interference control. In incongruent mixed-block trials VEPs were larger to probes near the targets. In the fixed-blocks probe-VEPs were not modulated, but contrary to the mixed-block the preceding target-related VEP was affected by congruency. Results of the control-related N2 reveal largest amplitudes in the unpredictable context, which did not differentiate for stimulus and response incongruency. In contrast, in the predictable context, N2 amplitudes were reduced overall and differentiated between stimulus and response incongruency. Taken together these results imply that predictability alters interference control by a reconfiguration of stimulus processing. During unpredictable sequences participants adjust their attentional focus dynamically on a trial-by-trial basis as reflected in congruency-dependent probe-VEP-modulation. This reactive control mode also elicits larger N2 amplitudes. In contrast, when task demands are predictable, participants focus selective attention earlier as reflected in the target-related VEPs. This proactive control mode leads to smaller N2 amplitudes and absent probe effects.

Functional and effective connectivity of stopping.

Behavioral inhibition often is studied by comparing the electroencephalographic responses to stop and to go signals. Most studies simply assess amplitude differences of the N200 and P300 event-related potentials, which seem to best correspond to increased activity in the theta and delta frequency bands, respectively. However, neither have reliable indicators for successful behavioral inhibition been identified nor have the causal dependencies of stop-related neurocognitive processes been addressed yet. By studying functional and effective connectivity underlying stopping behavior, this study opens new directions for the investigation of behavioral inhibition. Group independent component analysis was used to infer functionally coherent networks from electroencephalographic data, which were recorded from healthy human participants during processing of a stop signal task. Then, the temporal dynamics of causal dependencies between independent components were identified by means of Bayesian network estimations. The mean clustering coefficient and the characteristic path length measure indicated time windows between 130 and 180 ms and between 420 and 500 ms to express significantly different connectivity profiles between conditions. Three components showed significant correlations between 120 and 260 ms with stop signal reaction times and the number of failed stops. Two of these components acted as sources of causal flow, one capturing P300/delta characteristics while the other was characterized by alpha power depletion putatively representing the evaluation or processing of stimulus features. Although results suggest that the P300 and associated delta activity seem to be statistically dependent on earlier processes associated with behavioral inhibition, the time window critical for inhibition coincides with early changes in causal patterns and largely precedes peak amplitude differences between go and stop trials. Altogether, utilizing the analysis of stopping-related connectivity, previously undetected patterns emerged that warrant further investigation.