Action monitoring, error detection, and the basal ganglia: an ERP study

The error negativity (N-e or ERN) is an event-related brain potential compo nent, which is assumed to reflect error detection. Recently it has been hyp othesized that the basal ganglia are assumed to play a crucial role in erro r detection. In the present study we ask whether the N-e is altered in pati ents with Parkinson's disease (PD), who have an impaired function of the ba sal ganglia. We recorded the N-e in patients and in matched controls, while they performed different tasks that require a relatively high cognitive co ntrol, which is supposed to pose particular problems on PD. The N-e was in fact smaller in the patients than in the controls in all tasks. Our results suggest an impairment of error detection in PD for different types of dema nding tasks. This supports the hypothesis that the basal ganglia do play an important role for error detection in action monitoring. NeuroReport 12:15 7-161 (C) 2001 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.