Temporally Remote Destabilization of Prediction After Rare Breaches of Expectancy

While neural signatures of breaches of expectancy and their immediate effects have been investigated, thus far, temporally more remote effects have been neglected. The present fMRI study explored neural correlates of temporally remote destabilization of prediction following rare breaches of expectancy with a mean delay of 14 s. We hypothesized temporally remote destabilization to be reflected either in an attenuation of areas related to long-term memory or in an increase of lateral fronto-parietal loops related to the encoding of new stimuli. Monitoring a deterministic 24-digit sequence, subjects were asked to indicate occasional sequential omissions by key press. Temporally remote destabilization of prediction was expected to be revealed by contrasting sequential events whose equivalent was omitted in the preceding sequential run n-1 (destabilized events) with sequential events without such history (nondestabilized events). Temporally remote destabilization of prediction was reflected in an attenuation of activity in the dorsal frontomedian cortex (Brodmann Area (BA) 9) bilaterally. Moreover, activation of the left medial BA 9 was enhanced by contrasting nondestabilized events with breaches. The decrease of dorsal frontomedian activation in the case of destabilized events might be interpreted as a top-down modulation on perception causing a less expectation-restricted encoding of the current stimulus and hence enabling the adaptation of expectation and prediction in the long run.