BSW and SCL helped with the revisions of the manuscript and preparation of response letters.
This is appears to be a very interesting finding as a crucial role in the critical evaluation of stimuli and for the preparation of response strategies has been attributed to the DMPFC [ 34].
This event-related potential was subsequently localized to ACC (Dehaene et al. 1994), leading to the idea that ACC functions could be characterized as the monitoring of, and preparation of response to, errors.
A study that isolated brain activation in subregions of the striatum during different intratrial processes (stimulus, preparation of response, response and feedback) in a visuomotor learning task showed that the putamen was active during all processes, but to a higher degree during response (Peterson & Seger, 2013).
This implies a role for ACC in the integration of cognitive and affective responses to external events and in the preparation of behavioural responses to those events.
In order to capture the stimulus processing phase and to separate it from the motor preparation of the response, a delayed response paradigm was used (see Fig. 1a) in the ERP experiment.
In brief, our N400 waveforms can be explained by similar morphology reported in paradigms using auditory and non-static onset stimuli as well as by an increased motor preparation of hand responses.
This finding was recently confirmed by Praamstra et al. (2005), who directly compared lateralised ERP components triggered during covert shifts of spatial attention and the preparation of unimanual responses.
Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), a method which has the advantage of high temporal resolution, Ploner et al. (2002) demonstrated that the timing of pregenual ACC activity in response to painful stimuli suggests a specific involvement in second pain, which is thought to reflect affective and motivational aspects of pain: awareness of unpleasant sensation and preparation of avoidance responses.
