Finger tapping and inhibitory control: Two sides of the same coin

During this talk, I will present several neuroimaging projects in the fields of sensorimotor synchronization and motor inhibitory control. Sensorimotor synchronization refers to the act of synchronizing actions with some external events, and implies accurate temporal planning of movement execution. Inhibitory control refers to the ability to suppress ongoing or planned cognitive or motor processes. These processes rely on overlapping brain areas including the basal ganglia, supplementary motor area, and inferior frontal gyrus. Neuroimaging studies have attributed a key role in beat processing to the basal ganglia and supplementary motor area, and in inhibitory control to the right inferior frontal gyrus. Although it is tempting to assign the accelerator and brake pedals of motor control to these brain areas, the picture is, as ever with the brain, a little more complicated. I will take this opportunity to briefly discuss the problematic of inferring cognitive processes from neuroimaging-related brain activations.