Single-subject prediction of response inhibition behavior by event-related potentials

Much research has been devoted to investigating response inhibition and the neuronal processes constituting this essential cognitive faculty. However, the nexus between cognitive subprocesses, behavior, and electrophysiological processes remains associative in nature. We therefore investigated whether neurophysiological correlates of inhibition subprocesses merely correlate with behavioral performance or actually provide information expedient to the prediction of behavior on a single-subject level. Tackling this question, we used different data-driven classification approaches in a sample of n = 262 healthy young subjects who completed a standard Go/Nogo task while an EEG was recorded. On the basis of median-split response inhibition performance, subjects were classified as "accurate/slow" and "less accurate/fast." Even though these behavioral group differences were associated with significant amplitude variations in classical electrophysiological correlates of response inhibition (i.e., N2 and P3), they were not predictive for group membership on a single-subject level. Instead, amplitude differences in the Go-P2 originating in the precuneus (BA7) were shown to predict group membership on a single-subject level with up to 64% accuracy. These findings strongly suggest that the behavioral outcome of response inhibition greatly depends on the amount of cognitive resources allocated to early stages of stimulus-response activation during responding. This suggests that research should focus more on early processing steps during responding when trying to understand the origin of interindividual differences in response inhibition processes.