Topic: dorsal premotor cortex

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) and dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) are two association brain areas implicated in decision making. However, whether these brain areas have similar or distinct decision-related dynamics remains an open question. In addition, anatomical studies suggest considerable connectivity heterogeneity between DLPFC areas and parietal lobe, temporal lobe, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Whether different areas within the DLPFC also demonstrate distinct decision-related dynamics is also an open question. We addressed these open questions by comparing the neural dynam

We employed a dynamical systems perspective to bridge decision-related neural activity and decision-making behavior, a fundamentally unresolved problem. The dynamical systems approach posits that neural dynamics (X) are parameterized by a state equation (dX/dt=F(X)+U) with varying initial conditions (x0) and that evolves in time by combining at each time step, recurrent activity (F) and inputs (U). We considered different dynamical systems that make predictions about whether 1) initial conditions substantially predict subsequent dynamics and reaction time (RT) and/or choice, and 2) whether i

Performing two skills, such as swinging a tennis racquet or axe, requires both differences in typical motor output and different feedback-driven adjustments. The motor cortex (M1) is clearly involved in specifying motor output. Less-well understood is the extent and nature of its role in performing computations underlying skill-specific feedback control. In addressing this question, a technical hurdle is that it can be difficult to discern when skill-specific aspects of neural activity reflect different motor outputs versus skill-specific feedback control. To overcome this hurdle, we employed

Neuroscientific data exhibits complex, nonlinear dynamics, varying in time and over trials. A growing body of work has focused on capturing nonlinear dynamics, doing so in increasingly complex ways for modeling and inference. Meanwhile, capturing the dependency on experimental conditions surrounding the neural recordings remains understudied, and few methods leverage the correlation structure across experimental conditions. This poses difficulties for model estimation as well as any analyses comparing and interpolating between conditions. In this work, we develop the Gaussian Process Linear Dy

It has been hypothesized that feedback connections originating from motor areas exert top-down influences on the posterior parietal cortex during visuomotor behavior. However, a comprehensive understanding of the dynamic reciprocal flow of information within the fronto-parietal network is still lacking. This study aims to investigate whether fronto-parietal communication can be modulated by cognitive components of motor preparation such as anticipation of the appearance of a visual target. To this end, two rhesus macaques were trained in a visuomotor sequential reaching task. Critically, the s

The transitive inference (TI) task facilitates the examination of decision-making processes by tapping into a mental schema formed from previously acquired knowledge. In this task, individuals initially learn the ordinal relationships between pairs of adjacent rank-ordered items in the hierarchy, such as A>B>C>D>E, and E>F. Subsequently, they must infer the relationships between novel item pairs (e.g., DvsE) during a test phase. In the process of making these comparisons, a Symbolic Distance (SD) effect emerges, influencing performance. Accuracy increases and reaction times decr

Beta rhythms are ubiquitous in the motor cortex, and many functional roles were proposed. We recently described a double-dissociation between different beta bands in macaques local field potential (LFP), with low beta (<20Hz) originating in primary motor cortex (M1) and correlating with movement preparation and spontaneous postural dynamics, and high beta (>20Hz) originating in dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and reflecting spatiotemporal attention (Nougaret et al. 2023, doi:10.1101/2023.03.28.534535). Even within these two bands, individual beta events are highly heterogeneous in their tem