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Authors & Affiliations
Stefano Grasso, Lucia Sacheli, Eros Quarta, Laura Zapparoli, Eraldo Paulesu, Alexandra Battaglia Mayer
Abstract
Many of our daily actions require interacting with others. Despite this attitude, the neural mechanisms underpinning motor control in the domain of social interaction remain poorly understood, especially at single cell or population level. Our previous studies demonstrated that both monkeys and humans adapt their behaviour when acting in a dyadic context, and that macaques, as humans, leverage on a “we-representation”, suggesting phylogenetically preserved neural processes. At neural level, we showed in macaque dorsal premotor (PMd/F2) cortex the existence of a population of cells, preferentially active during joint behavior. As a next step, here we explored to what extent motor control during dyadic actions and inter-indidual coordination are encoded by Local Field Potentials (LFP) in PMd. Toward this aim, LFPs were recorded simultaneously from PMd of two macaques, performing a pre-cued isometric visuomotor task, by guiding with the hand visual cursors on a screen, either individually or jointly. Behavioural results showed the motor adjustment of one monkey toward its partner in both temporal and spatial domain. These adjustments were reflected in the modulation of Movement Related Potential (1-15 Hz), with larger amplitude during the joint action condition relative to solipsistic action. Interestingly, during joint behaviour LFP amplitude correlated with the inter-cursor distance, taken as a measure of the strength of the inter-individual coordination, where larger amplitude signalled higher degree of coordination. Furthermore, these signals emerged during the planning phase of dyadic interactions. Our results offer further evidence on the role of premotor cortex in guiding and controlling joint performance.