Fig. 1

a Perception action system for error-related mental processes during laparoscopic surgical training. Portable neuroimaging allowed investigation of the brain regions based on the optode montage (see Fig. 1b) and its sensitivity profile (see Fig. 1c) that included ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (VFC), superior parietal lobule (SPL), supramarginal gyrus (SMG), angular gyrus (AG), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), frontal eye field (FEF), premotor and primary motor cortex (PMC). A distinction is made between the unexpected stimulus (error) driven attention and the controlled goal directed attention in the frontoparietal network system. b Multi-modal (fNIRS–EEG) sensor montage including short-separation (labelled SS in light blue ellipses) channels. The red filled circles are the fNIRS sources, the green filled circles are the fNIRS detectors, the grey filled circles are the EEG electrodes, the violet lines are the optode pairs for the fNIRS channels. c Probe sensitivity values in the 0.01 to 1 range are displayed logarithmically as − 2 to 0 in log10 units in the color bar (left panels). The projection of the fNIRS channels on the cortex are shown with black arrows (left panels) along with the Automated Anatomical Labelling (AAL) of the brain regions in color (right panels). Table 1 shows the AAL of the cortical areas underlying fNIRS channels (source #–detector # pair). d Experimental setup in the laboratory with the subject performing the FLS "suturing and intracorporeal knot-tying" task (FLS complex task)