ArticleNeuroImage2018
Precursor processes of human self-initiated action.
Article in NeuroImage, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 92 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Systematic review of the effectiveness of self-initiated interventions to decrease pain and sensory disturbances associated with peripheral neuropathy.Journal of cancer survivorship : research and practice · 2020Pooled it
- A randomised controlled trial investigating the causal role of the medial prefrontal cortex in mediating self-agency during speech monitoring and reality monitoring.Scientific reports · 2024Trial
- Action fluency and conscious intention: being aware of what we are about to do.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2026Article
- Impaired Speaking-Induced Suppression Predicts Degraded Agency and Hallucination Severity in Schizophrenia.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Article
- Article
- Pre-movement EEG microstates reflect intended lifted load of volitional movement.Frontiers in computational neuroscience · 2026Article
- Post-loss speeding and neurophysiological markers of action preparation and outcome processing in probabilistic reversal learning.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Article
- Differential Effects of Self-Initiated, Externally Triggered, and Passive Movements on Action-Outcome Processing: Insights From Sensory and Motor-Preparatory Event Related Potentials.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Article
- Causal role of medial superior frontal cortex on enhancing neural information flow and self-agency judgments in the self-agency network.NeuroImage · 2025Article
- Task-constrained self-initiated attention shifts are indexed by frontal-midline theta ramping.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- A multi-measurement study of the relation between deliberation and volition.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2025Article
- Aberrant preparation of hand movement in schizophrenia spectrum disorder: an fMRI study.Brain communications · 2025Article
- Probing for intentions: The early readiness potential does not reflect awareness of motor preparation.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Motor actions across psychiatric disorders: A research domain criteria (RDoC) perspective.Clinical psychology review · 2024Review
- Slow ramping emerges from spontaneous fluctuations in spiking neural networks.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Working memory involvement in action planning does not include timing initiation structure.Psychological research · 2024Review
- A systematic approach to brain dynamics: cognitive evolution theory of consciousness.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2023Article
- Article
- Feeling ready: neural bases of prospective motor readiness judgements.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
A gradual buildup of electrical potential over motor areas precedes self-initiated movements. Recently, such "readiness potentials" (RPs) were attributed to stochastic fluctuations in neural activity. We developed a new experimental paradigm that operationalized self-initiated actions as endogenous 'skip' responses while waiting for target stimuli in a perceptual decision task. We compared these to a block of trials where participants could not choose when to skip, but were instead instructed to skip. Frequency and timing of motor action were therefore balanced across blocks, so that conditions differed only in how the timing of skip decisions was generated. We reasoned that across-trial variability of EEG could carry as much information about the source of skip decisions as the mean RP. EEG variability decreased more markedly prior to self-initiated compared to externally-triggered skip actions. This convergence suggests a consistent preparatory process prior to self-initiated action. A leaky stochastic accumulator model could reproduce this convergence given the additional assumption of a systematic decrease in input noise prior to self-initiated actions. Our results may provide a novel neurophysiological perspective on the topical debate regarding whether self-initiated actions arise from a deterministic neurocognitive process, or from neural stochasticity. We suggest that the key precursor of self-initiated action may manifest as a reduction in neural noise.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.