Neural mechanisms of domain-general inhibitory control

Abstract

Inhibitory control is a fundamental mechanism underlying flexible behavior and features in theories across many areas of cognitive and psychological science. However, whereas many theories implicitly or explicitly assume that inhibitory control is a domain-general process, the vast majority of neuroscientific work has hitherto focused on individual domains, such as motor, mnemonic, or attentional inhibition. Here, we attempt to close this gap by highlighting recent work that demonstrates shared neuroanatomical and neurophysiological signatures of inhibitory control across domains. We propose that the regulation of thalamocortical drive by a fronto-subthalamic mechanism operating in the β band might be a domain-general mechanism for inhibitory control in the human brain.