Cortical Contributions to Medial Frontal β-Bursts during Executive Control

EEG β-bursts observed over the medial frontal cortex are claimed to mediate response inhibition despite their infrequent occurrence. The weak association with stopping behavior is supposed to be a by-product of the low signal-to-noise ratio of EEG recordings. We tested the premise that β-bursts are more common within the cerebral cortex and more directly associated with response inhibition. We sampled simultaneously EEG and intracortical local field potentials (LFP) within the medial frontal cortex (MFC) of two macaque monkeys performing a response inhibition task. Intracortical β-bursts were just as infrequent as those in EEG and did not parallel the likelihood of canceling a planned response. Cortical β-bursts were more prevalent in upper layers but were not synchronized across a cortical column or with EEG β-bursts. These findings contradict claims for a causal contribution of β-bursts during response inhibition, provide important constraints for biophysical and cortical circuit models, and invite further considerations of β-burst function in cognitive control.