Topic: preparatory activity

Increasing the magnitude of an offered reward for an action can improve performance. However, performance can suffer when the payoff is exceptionally large, a phenomenon dubbed “choking under pressure.” What is the neural basis of choking under pressure, and what are the neural mechanisms whereby potential rewards affect motor performance? To study the interaction between rewards and movement, we recorded neural population activity in the motor cortex of rhesus monkeys as they performed a challenging delayed-reaching task, in which the reward available for a successful reach was pre-cued. Bot

Adaptation is essential for biological motor control, enabling rapid modifications of control strategies as the environment changes. However, we still lack a unified network-level theory of coordinated motor adaptation. In previous work, we have proposed a multi-area RNN capable of rapid motor adaptation. The network comprises an internal forward model and a planning/control policy network, both of which are continuously modulated by a network that performs contextual inference. The network is meta-trained to maintain proficient control of hand reaches in the face of changing environmental dyn

Sixty years after the discovery of a slow monotonic drift in electroencephalographic recordings preceding voluntary self-paced actions ("the readiness potential"), its physiological underpinnings remain elusive. A classical interpretation holds that readiness potential onset reflects the decision to act, with the drift thereafter proceeding deterministically to movement onset. However, more recent analyses suggest that the readiness potential's monotonicity may be an artifact of trial averaging; rather than a slow, deterministic process, fast stochastic processes underlie self-paced decisions.

The acquisition of new motor skills engages rich neural processes that are still not fully characterized. Behaviorally, learning of a new skill (e.g., the ability to tie up shoelaces) involves two seemingly independent components: (1) the selection of successful heuristics in the form of high-level strategies that efficiently solve the task at hand, and (2) the gradual increase in motor proficiency associated with faster, smoother, and more precise movements. While motor heuristics and motor proficiency both play a significant role in skill learning, it is still unknown how they are orchestrat