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Anticipation, monitoring, and evaluation of the outcome of one's actions are at the core of proactive control. Individuals with lesions to OFC often demonstrate behaviors that indicate a lack of recognition or concern for the negative effects of their actions. Altered action timing has also been reported in these patients. We investigated the role of OFC in predicting and monitoring the sensory outcomes of self-paced actions. We studied patients with focal OFC lesions (n = 15) and healthy controls (n = 20) while they produced actions that infrequently evoked unexpected outcomes. Participants performed a self-paced, random generation task where they repeatedly pressed right and left buttons that were associated with specific sensory outcomes: a 1- and 2-kHz tone, respectively. Occasional unexpected action outcomes occurred (mismatch) that inverted the learned button–tone association (match). We analyzed ERPs to the expected and unexpected outcomes as well as action timing. Neither group showed post-mismatch slowing of button presses, but OFC patients had a higher number of fast button presses, indicating that they were inferior to controls at producing regularly timed actions. Mismatch trials elicited enhanced N2b-P3a responses across groups as indicated by the significant main effect of task condition. Planned within-group analyses showed, however, that patients did not have a significant condition effect, suggesting that the result of the omnibus analysis was driven primarily by the controls. Altogether, our findings indicate that monitoring of action timing and the sensory outcomes of self-paced actions as indexed by ERPs is impacted by OFC damage.

The human insula is known to be involved in auditory processing, but knowledge about its precise functional role and the underlying electrophysiology is limited. To assess its role in automatic auditory deviance detection we analyzed the EEG high frequency activity (HFA; 75–145 Hz) and ERPs from 90 intracranial insular channels across 16 patients undergoing pre-surgical intracranial monitoring for epilepsy treatment. Subjects passively listened to a stream of standard and deviant tones differing in four physical dimensions: intensity, frequency, location or time. HFA responses to auditory stimuli were found in the short and long gyri, and the anterior, superior, and inferior segments of the circular sulcus of the insular cortex. Only a subset of channels in the inferior segment of the circular sulcus of the insula showed HFA deviance detection responses, i.e., a greater and longer latency response to specific deviants relative to standards. Auditory deviancy processing was also later in the insula when compared with the superior temporal cortex. ERP results were more widespread and supported the HFA insular findings. These results provide evidence that the human insula is engaged during auditory deviance detection. Fil: Blenkmann, Alejandro Omar. University of Oslo; Noruega. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Collavini, Santiago. Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital Alta Complejidad en Red El Cruce Dr. Néstor Carlos Kirchner Samic. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos; Argentina Fil: Lubell, James. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Llorens, Anaïs. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Funderud, Ingrid. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Ivanovic, Jugoslav. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Larsson, Pål G.. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Meling, Torstein R.. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Bekinschtein, Tristán Andrés. University of Cambridge; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina Fil: Kochen, Sara Silvia. Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital Alta Complejidad en Red El Cruce Dr. Néstor Carlos Kirchner Samic. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos; Argentina Fil: Endestad, Tor. University of Oslo; Noruega Fil: Knight, Robert T.. University of California at Berkeley; Estados Unidos Fil: Solbakk, Anne Kristin. University of Oslo; Noruega

Constant prediction is a process of future-directed information processing (Rohrmeier & Koelsch, 2012). It is a major factor of the interaction with the complexity of the human environment and contributes to updating of the so-called cognitive world model (Brown & Brune, 2012; Bubic, von Cramon, Jacobsen, Schroger, & Schubotz, 2009; Bubic, von Cramon, & Schubotz, 2010; Friston, 2012). The top-down prediction of what is likely to come next is advantageous, for example, for the preparation of fast adequate responses to incoming stimuli (Friston, 2009). In audition it enables the identification of incomplete, noisy, or ambiguous stimuli, the reduction of the orienting response (Huron, 2001; Summerfield & Egner, 2009), and the preparation of more accurate responses (Schultz, Dayan, & Montague, 1997). Predictions are essential for the organism, often resulting in punishment as a result of failures, and rewards for success. Reward and punishment is reflected in negative and positive affective reactions (Grossberg, 2009; Pearce & Wiggins, 2012).Several music studies have examined emotions associated with expectancy (e.g., Koelsch, Kilches, Steinbeis, & Schelinski, 2008; Salimpoor, Benovoy, Larcher, Dagher, & Zatorre, 2011; Steinbeis, Koelsch, & Sloboda, 2005). One central principle underlying the evocation of emotions with music relies in part on expectancy and prediction (Huron, 2006; Koelsch, 2014; Meyer, 1956). Using EEG, Flores-Gutierrez et al. (2007) found a lateralized frontal alpha suppression during listening to unpredictable music, perhaps originating in limbic/paralimbic structures. Using fMRI, it was found that breaches of expectancy evoke blood-oxygen level dependent (BOLD) changes in the amygdala (Koelsch, Fritz, & Schlaug, 2008) and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC; Tillmann, Janata, & Bharucha, 2003; Koelsch, Fritz, Schulze, Alsop, & Schlaug, 2005). The emotional reaction to unexpected musical information was found to be reflected in increased electrodermal activity (Koelsch et al., 2008; Steinbeis et al., 2005). These regions play an important role in various emotional processes, including breaches of expectancy (Nobre, Coull, Frith, & Mesulam, 1999). Notably, the OFC is, in addition to numerous other affective functions, associated with the evaluation of the emotional significance of sensory stimuli (Rolls, 2000).In summary, limbic/paralimbic circuits including the OFC and the amygdala appear to be important for emotional reactions to expectancy violations in music. Psychologically, breaches of expectancy in music create not only surprise (Koelsch et al., 2008), but also modulate tension (Lehne, Rohrmeier, & Koelsch, 2014). In tonal music, a structural breach is usually followed by a transitory phase, which leads to the resolution of the breach; this transitory phase represents a delay of the expected resolution and relaxation (Koelsch, 2014). Note that the studies mentioned above only explored the breach of expectancy, and not the effects of the resolution of the resulting tension.Expectancy in music and its resulting tension is a process that occurs over time, and usually involves several discrete events. Koelsch (2014) proposed that the different factors giving rise to tension and resolution contribute to a tension arc, with the different factors underlying tension including the build-up of expectancy, its breach, anticipation of resolution, and resolution (with maximum tension during breaches of expectancies and the subsequent transitory phase).The cognitive processing of unexpected chords (i.e., cognitive aspects of irregularity detection) is neurophysiologically reflected in an early right anterior negativity (ERAN), which is mainly generated in inferior fronto-lateral (neo-)cortex (Lehne et al., 2014; Sammler et al., 2013). Thus, unexpected chords elicit both cognitive and emotional processes. As mentioned above, the emotion reactions to unexpected chords appear to be reflected, for example, in an increased activation of the amygdala (Koelsch et al. …