The article reviews the stop-signal paradigm, a widely used tool in cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopathology to study response inhibition. Response inhibition is crucial for flexible and goal-directed behavior, and the stop-signal paradigm helps understand how individuals inhibit inappropriate or irrelevant responses. The paradigm involves subjects performing a go task, followed by a stop task when a stop signal is presented. The process is modeled as a race between the go and stop processes, with the latency of the stop process (SSRT) being a key measure of cognitive control. Recent studies have identified the neural substrates involved in response inhibition, including the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), and basal ganglia. These regions are part of a fronto-basal-ganglia inhibition network, with the right IFG and pre-SMA playing distinct roles in response inhibition and performance monitoring. Unsuccessful inhibition is associated with error-related negativity (ERN) and activation in medial and middle frontal regions, suggesting a monitoring deficit. The article also discusses inhibitory deficits in various psychopathological and neurological disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and substance abuse disorders. These deficits are linked to functional and structural differences in the fronto-basal-ganglia inhibitory network. Future research should focus on understanding how inhibitory processes and monitoring jointly contribute to successful stop performance and how these processes are implemented in the brain.The article reviews the stop-signal paradigm, a widely used tool in cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, and psychopathology to study response inhibition. Response inhibition is crucial for flexible and goal-directed behavior, and the stop-signal paradigm helps understand how individuals inhibit inappropriate or irrelevant responses. The paradigm involves subjects performing a go task, followed by a stop task when a stop signal is presented. The process is modeled as a race between the go and stop processes, with the latency of the stop process (SSRT) being a key measure of cognitive control. Recent studies have identified the neural substrates involved in response inhibition, including the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA), and basal ganglia. These regions are part of a fronto-basal-ganglia inhibition network, with the right IFG and pre-SMA playing distinct roles in response inhibition and performance monitoring. Unsuccessful inhibition is associated with error-related negativity (ERN) and activation in medial and middle frontal regions, suggesting a monitoring deficit. The article also discusses inhibitory deficits in various psychopathological and neurological disorders, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and substance abuse disorders. These deficits are linked to functional and structural differences in the fronto-basal-ganglia inhibitory network. Future research should focus on understanding how inhibitory processes and monitoring jointly contribute to successful stop performance and how these processes are implemented in the brain.