Error-Related Negativity: Dynamics of a Neurocognitive Sensitivity Marker to Decision Mismatch in Psychiatric Disorders

The transformation of methodological ideas about ERN as a significant neurocognitive marker for clarifying the mechanisms of development and maintenance of mental disorders are analyzed. The potential is registered in the anterior cingulate cortex 50–100 ms after making an error in the conflict task and acts as a neurocognitive indicator of sensitivity to decision mismatches. Comprehension of the provisions on the error monitoring system is discussed depending on the peculiarities of the clinical group definition, different conditions of activity (error of another or one’s own, motivational significance, attitude to accuracy, uncertainty, awareness of the error and other), as well as individual-typological characteristics. The significance of the error monitoring system in the context of the transition from a categorical to a dimensional approach to the classification of mental disorders is conceptualized, and inconsistencies in the data are discussed. ERN is considered as a modulation pattern of the internalisation-externalisation spectrum of psychopathology, acting as a dimensional psychopathological model that partially overcomes the problems of comorbidity. Based on the idea of defining ERN as a transdiagnostic electrophysiological marker of mental health, highly comorbid disorders, the problem of comparing the features of the error monitoring system in anxiety and psychotic disorders is analyzed. Studies show specific strengthening of the ERN in anxiety disorders and weakening in psychosis, but some components of the ERN in psychotic disorders may remain preserved, and under certain conditions of activity, error detection is intact. The qualitative rearrangements in the error monitoring system in psychosis reveal a more complex psychological structure of error identification than the observation of a decline in this ability.

Asuncion, de la J., Docx, L., Morrens, M., Sabbe, B., de Bruijn, E. R. A. (2015). Neurophysiological evidence for diminished monitoring of own, but intact monitoring of other’s errors in schizophrenia. Psychiatry Research, 230 (2), 220–226. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2015.08.043

Barch, D. M., Sheffield, J. M. (2017). Cognitive control in schizophrenia: Psychological and neural mechanisms. In: T. Egner (ed.). The Wiley Handbook of Cognitive Control. Hoboken, Wiley Blackwell, 556–580. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118920497.ch31

Barker, T. V., Troller-Renfree, S., Pine, D. S., Fox, N. A. (2015). Individual differences in social anxiety affect the salience of errors in social contexts. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience, 15 (4), 723–735. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-015-0360-9

Buzzell, G. A., Troller-Renfree, S. V., Barker, T. V., Bowman, L. C., Chronis-Tuscano, A., Henderson, H. A., Kagan, J., Pine, D. S., Fox, N. A. (2017). A neurobehavioral mechanism linking behaviorally inhibited temperament and later adolescent social anxiety. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 56 (12), 1097–1105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2017.10.007

Carrasco, M., Harbin, S. M., Nienhuis, J. K., Fitzgerald, K. D., Gehring, W. J., Hanna, G. L. (2013). Increased error-related brain activity in youth with obsessive — compulsive disorder and unaffected siblings. Depression and Anxiety, 30 (1), 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1002/da.22035

Carter, C. S., Braver, T. S., Barch, D. M., Botvinick, M. M., Noll, D., Cohen, J. D. (1998). Anterior cingulate cortex, error detection, and the online monitoring of performance. Science, 280 (5364), 747–749. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.280.5364.747

Chidharom, M., Krieg, J., Bonnefond, A. (2021). Impaired frontal midline theta during periods of high reaction time variability in schizophrenia. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 6 (4), 429–438. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.10.005

Clark, D., Wells, A. (1995). A cognitive model of social phobia. In: R. G. Heimberg, M. R. Liebowitz, D. A. Hope, F. R. Schneier (eds). Social Phobia: Diagnosis, assessment and treatment (pp. 69–93). New York, Guilford Press.

Eysenck, M. W., Moser, J. S., Derakshan, N., Hepsomali, P., Allen, P. (2023). A neurocognitive account of attentional control theory: How does trait anxiety affect the brain’s attentional networks? Cognition and Emotion, 37 (2), 220–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2022.2159936

Falkenstein, M., Hohnsbein, J., Hoormann, J. (1990). Effects of errors in choice reaction tasks on the ERP under focused and divided attention. In: C. H. M. Brunia, A. W. K. Gaillard, A. Kok (eds). Psychophysiological Brain Research, vol. 1 (pp. 192–195). Tilburg, Tilburg University Press.

Gehring, W. J., Goss, B., Coles, M. G. H., Meyer, D. E., Donchin, E. (1993). Neural system for error detection and compensation. Psychological Science, 4 (6), 385–390. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00586.x

Gehring, W. J., Goss, B., Coles, M. G. H., Meyer, D. E., Donchin, E. (2018). The error-related negativity. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13 (2), 200–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617715310

Kahn, R. S., Keefe, R. S. E. (2013). Schizophrenia Is a Cognitive Illness. JAMA Psychiatry, 70 (10), 1107–1112. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.155

Kholmogorova, A. B. (2015). The role of L. S. Vygotsky’s ideas in the development of social cognition paradigm in modern psychology: A review of foreign research and discussion on perspectives. Kul’turnotsoricheskaia psikhologiia, 11 (3), 25–43. https://doi.org/10.17759/chp.2015110304 (In Russian)

Kirschner, H., Klein, T. A. (2022). Beyond a blunted ERN — Biobehavioral correlates of performance monitoring in schizophrenia. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 133, art. 104504. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.12.027

Klimusheva, T. A. (1965). Clinical and psychological studies of patients with paranoid schizophrenia with the Kandinsky — Clerambault syndrome. In: B. V. Zeigarnik, S. Ya. Rubinstein (eds). Voprosy eksperimental’noi patopsikhologii. Moscow, Research Institute of Psychiatry Press, 117–128. (In Russian)

Krueger, R. F., Eaton, N. R. (2015). Transdiagnostic factors of mental disorders. World Psychiatry, 14 (1), 27–29. https://doi.org/10.1002/wps.20175

Levinson, T., Prettyman, G., Savage, C., White, L., Moore, T. M., Calkins, M. E., Ruparel, K., Gur, R. E., Gur, R. C., Satterthwaite, T. D., Wolf, D. H. (2023). Activation of internal correctness monitoring circuitry in youths with psychosis spectrum symptoms. Biological Psychiatry Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, 8 (5), 542–550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.01.010

Llerena, K., Wynn, J. K., Hajcak, G., Green, M. F., Horan, W. P. (2016). Patterns and reliability of EEG during error monitoring for internal versus external feedback in schizophrenia. International journal of psychophysiology: official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology, 105, 39–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2016.04.012

Meyer, D. E., Osman, A. M., Irwin, D. E., Yantis, S. (1988). Modern mental chronometry. Biological Psychology, 26 (1–3), 3–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/0301-0511(88)90013-0

National Institute of Mental Health. Research Domain Criteria (RDoC). Available at: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/research/research-funded-by-nimh/rdoc (accessed: 10.09.2023).

van Noordt, S. J. R., Segalowitz, S. J. (2012). Performance monitoring and the medial prefrontal cortex: a review of individual differences and context effects as a window on self-regulation. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 6, article 197. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2012.00197

Pasion, R., Barbosa, F. (2019). ERN as a transdiagnostic marker of the internalizing-externalizing spectrum: A dissociable meta-analytic effect. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 103, 133–149. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2019.06.013

Riesel, A., Klawohn, J., Grützmann, R., Kaufmann, C., Heinzel, S., Bey, K., Lennertz, L., Wagner, M., Kathmann, N. (2019). Error-related brain activity as a transdiagnostic endophenotype for obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety and substance use disorder. Psychological Medicine, 49 (7), 1207–1217. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291719000199

Sagalakova, O. A., Truevtsev, D. V., Sagalakova, A. M. (2016). Violation of cognitive regulation of social anxiety in anti-vital behavior. Tomsk, Tomsk University Press. (In Russian)

Sagalakova, O. A., Truevtsev, D. V., Zhirnova, O. V. (2021). Error-related negativity: Neurocognitive transdiagnostic marker of anxiety disorders. Nevrologicheskii vestnik, 53 (1), 80–83. https://doi.org/10.17816/nb58800 (In Russian)

Sagalakova, O. A., Truevtsev, D. V., Zhirnova, O. V., Tinekov, A. V. (2023). The effects of social anxiety and shame in voice development: Metacognitive processing of adverse relationship experiences and vigilance toward social threats. Klinicheskaia i sotsial’naia psikhologiia, 12 (2), 25–53. https://doi.org/10.17759/cpse.2023120202 (In Russian)

Seow, T. X. F., Benoit, E., Dempsey, C., Jennings, M., Maxwell, A., McDonough, M., Gillan, C. M. (2020). A dimensional investigation of error-related negativity (ERN) and self-reported psychiatric symptoms. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 158, 340–348. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2020.09.019

Storchak, H., Ehlis, A. C., Fallgatter, A. J. (2021). Action-monitoring alterations as indicators of predictive deficits in schizophrenia. Topics in Cognitive Science, 13 (1), 142–163. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12495

Voegler, R., Peterburs, J., Lemke, H., Ocklenburg, S., Liepelt, R., Straube, T. (2018). Electrophysiological correlates of performance monitoring under social observation in patients with social anxiety disorder and healthy controls. Biological Psychology, 132, 71–80. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2017.11.003

Xu, L. H., Zhu, T. Yu., Tang, Yi. Yi., Tang, X. C., Qian, Z. Yi., Wei, Ya. Ya., Cui, H. R., Hu, Ye. G., Zhang, D., Wang, Yi. C., Zhu, J. J., Li, H., Liu, X. H., Zhang, T. H., Hong, X. F., Wang, J. J. (2024). Impaired insight and error-monitoring deficits among outpatients with attenuated psychosis syndrome and first-episode psychosis. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 170, 33–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2023.12.007

Zou, L.-Q., Wang, K., Qu, C., Lui, S. S. Y., Shum, D. H. K., Cheung, E. F. C., Chan, R. C. K. (2014). Verbal self-monitoring in individuals with schizotypal personality traits: An exploratory ERP study. Asian Journal of Psychiatry, 11, 53–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2014.06.004