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ELife May 2018Motor contagions refer to implicit effects on one's actions induced by observed actions. Motor contagions are believed to be induced simply by action observation and...
Motor contagions refer to implicit effects on one's actions induced by observed actions. Motor contagions are believed to be induced simply by action observation and cause an observer's action to become similar to the action observed. In contrast, here we report a new motor contagion that is induced only when the observation is accompanied by prediction errors - differences between actions one observes and those he/she predicts or expects. In two experiments, one on whole-body baseball pitching and another on simple arm reaching, we show that the observation of the same action induces distinct motor contagions, depending on whether prediction errors are present or not. In the absence of prediction errors, as in previous reports, participants' actions changed to become similar to the observed action, while in the presence of prediction errors, their actions changed to diverge away from it, suggesting distinct effects of action observation and action prediction on human actions.
Topics: Adult; Anticipation, Psychological; Baseball; Humans; Imitative Behavior; Male; Motor Activity; Movement; Psychomotor Performance; Visual Perception
PubMed: 29807568
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.33392 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Oct 2010Control consciousness is the awareness or experience of seeming to be in control of one's actions. One view, which I will be arguing against in the present paper, is... (Review)
Review
Control consciousness is the awareness or experience of seeming to be in control of one's actions. One view, which I will be arguing against in the present paper, is that control consciousness is a form of sensory consciousness. In such a view, control consciousness is exhausted by sensory elements such as tactile and proprioceptive information. An opposing view, which I will be arguing for, is that sensory elements cannot be the whole story and must be supplemented by direct contributions of nonsensory, motor elements. More specifically, I will be arguing for the view that the neural basis of control consciousness is constituted by states of recurrent activation in relatively intermediate levels of the motor hierarchy.
Topics: Consciousness; Executive Function; Humans; Motor Activity; Sensation
PubMed: 25164048
DOI: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01084.x -
Trends in Neurosciences Dec 2013The agranular architecture of motor cortex lacks a functional interpretation. Here, we consider a 'predictive coding' account of this unique feature based on asymmetries... (Review)
Review
The agranular architecture of motor cortex lacks a functional interpretation. Here, we consider a 'predictive coding' account of this unique feature based on asymmetries in hierarchical cortical connections. In sensory cortex, layer 4 (the granular layer) is the target of ascending pathways. We theorise that the operation of predictive coding in the motor system (a process termed 'active inference') provides a principled rationale for the apparent recession of the ascending pathway in motor cortex. The extension of this theory to interlaminar circuitry also accounts for a sub-class of 'mirror neuron' in motor cortex--whose activity is suppressed when observing an action--explaining how predictive coding can gate hierarchical processing to switch between perception and action.
Topics: Animals; Humans; Models, Neurological; Motor Activity; Motor Cortex; Nerve Net; Neural Pathways; Neurons; Perception
PubMed: 24157198
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2013.09.004 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Oct 2011The discovery of mirror neurons in the monkey, that fire during both the execution and the observation of the same action, sparked great interest in studying the human... (Comparative Study)
Comparative Study
The discovery of mirror neurons in the monkey, that fire during both the execution and the observation of the same action, sparked great interest in studying the human equivalent. For over a decade, both functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG) have been used to quantify activity in the human mirror neuron system (MNS)-yet, little is still known about how fMRI and EEG measures of the MNS relate to each other. To test the frequent assumption that regions of the MNS as evidenced by fMRI are the origin of the suppression of the EEG μ-rhythm during both action execution and observation, we recorded EEG and BOLD-fMRI signals simultaneously while participants observed and executed actions. We found that the suppression of the μ-rhythm in EEG covaried with BOLD activity in typical MNS regions, inferior parietal lobe (IPL), dorsal premotor (dPM) and primary somatosensory cortex (BA2), during both action observation and execution. In contrast, in BA44, only nonoverlapping voxels correlated with μ-suppression during observation and execution. These findings provide direct support for the notion that μ-suppression is a valid indicator of MNS activity in BA2, IPL, and dPM, but argues against the idea that mirror neurons in BA44 are the prime source of μ-suppression. These results shed light on the neural basis of μ-suppression and provide a basis for integrating more closely the flourishing but often separate literatures on the MNS using fMRI and EEG.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Electroencephalography; Female; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Male; Motor Activity; Motor Cortex; Parietal Lobe; Photic Stimulation; Psychomotor Performance; Random Allocation; Somatosensory Cortex; Young Adult
PubMed: 21976509
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0963-11.2011 -
NeuroImage Feb 2020The Readiness Potential (RP) is a slow negative EEG potential found in the seconds preceding voluntary actions. Here, we explore whether the RP is found only at this...
The Readiness Potential (RP) is a slow negative EEG potential found in the seconds preceding voluntary actions. Here, we explore whether the RP is found only at this time, or if it also occurs when no action is produced. Recent theories suggest the RP reflects the average of accumulated stochastic fluctuations in neural activity, rather than a specific signal related to self-initiated action: RP-like events should then be widely present, even in the absence of actions. We investigated this hypothesis by searching for RP-like events in background EEG of an appropriate dataset for which the action-locked EEG had previously been analysed to test other hypotheses [Khalighinejad, N., Brann, E., Dorgham, A., Haggard, P. Dissociating cognitive and motoric precursors of human self-initiated action. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. 2019, 1-14]. We used the actual mean RP as a template, and searched the entire epoch for similar neural signals, using similarity metrics that capture the temporal or spatial properties of the RP. Most EEG epochs contained a number of events that were similar to the true RP, but did not lead directly to any voluntary action. However, these RP-like events were equally common in epochs that eventually terminated in voluntary actions as in those where voluntary actions were not permitted. Events matching the temporal profile of the RP were also a poor match for the spatial profile, and vice versa. We conclude that these events are false positives, and do not reflect the same mechanism as the RP itself. Finally, applying the same template-search algorithm to simulated EEG data synthesized from different noise distributions showed that RP-like events will occur in any dataset containing the 1⁄f noise ubiquitous in EEG recordings. To summarise, we found no evidence of genuinely RP-like events at any time other than immediately prior to self-initiated actions. Our findings do not support a purely stochastic model of RP generation, and suggest that the RP may be a specific precursor of self-initiated voluntary actions.
Topics: Adult; Algorithms; Cerebral Cortex; Contingent Negative Variation; Electroencephalography; Functional Neuroimaging; Humans; Models, Biological; Motor Activity
PubMed: 31629833
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2019.116286 -
PLoS Biology Dec 2021The brain stem noradrenergic nucleus locus coeruleus (LC) is involved in various costly processes: arousal, stress, and attention. Recent work has pointed toward an...
The brain stem noradrenergic nucleus locus coeruleus (LC) is involved in various costly processes: arousal, stress, and attention. Recent work has pointed toward an implication in physical effort, and indirect evidence suggests that the LC could be also involved in cognitive effort. To assess the dynamic relation between LC activity, effort production, and difficulty, we recorded the activity of 193 LC single units in 5 monkeys performing 2 discounting tasks (a delay discounting task and a force discounting task), as well as a simpler target detection task where conditions were matched for difficulty and only differed in terms of sensory-motor processes. First, LC neurons displayed a transient activation both when monkeys initiated an action and when exerting force. Second, the magnitude of the activation scaled with the associated difficulty, and, potentially, the corresponding amount of effort produced, both for decision and force production. Indeed, at action initiation in both discounting tasks, LC activation increased in conditions associated with lower average engagement rate, i.e., those requiring more cognitive control to trigger the response. Decision-related activation also scaled with response time (RT), over and above task parameters, in line with the idea that it reflects the amount of resources (here time) spent on the decision process. During force production, LC activation only scaled with the amount of force produced in the force discounting task, but not in the control target detection task, where subjective difficulty was equivalent across conditions. Our data show that LC neurons dynamically track the amount of effort produced to face both cognitive and physical challenges with a subsecond precision. This works provides key insight into effort processing and the contribution of the noradrenergic system, which is affected in several pathologies where effort is impaired, including Parkinson disease and depression.
Topics: Action Potentials; Animals; Arousal; Attention; Cognition; Delay Discounting; Locus Coeruleus; Macaca mulatta; Male; Motor Activity; Neurons; Reaction Time
PubMed: 34874935
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001487 -
Progress in Neurobiology Dec 2019Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in sensory and motor processing, but its underlying organization is still debated. Sensory-based accounts suggest... (Review)
Review
Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in sensory and motor processing, but its underlying organization is still debated. Sensory-based accounts suggest that PPC is mainly involved in attentional selection and multisensory integration, serving novelty detection and information seeking. Motor-specific accounts suggest a parietal subdivision into lower-dimensional, effector-specific subspaces for planning motor action. More recently, function-based interpretations have been put forward based on coordinated responses across multiple effectors evoked by circumscribed PPC regions. In this review, we posit that an overarching interpretation of PPC's functional organization must integrate, rather than contrast, these various accounts of PPC. We propose that PPC's main role is that of a state estimator that extends into two poles: a rostral, body-related pole that projects the environment onto the body and a caudal, environment-related pole that projects the body into an environment landscape. The combined topology interweaves perceptual, motor, and function-specific principles, and suggests that actions are specified by top-down guided optimization of body-environment interactions.
Topics: Animals; Brain Mapping; Humans; Motor Activity; Parietal Lobe; Perception; Psychomotor Performance
PubMed: 31499087
DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2019.101691 -
The Journal of Neuroscience : the... Mar 2021The ventromedial (VM)/ventro-anterior-lateral (VAL) motor thalamus is a key junction within the brain circuits sustaining normal and pathologic motor control functions...
The ventromedial (VM)/ventro-anterior-lateral (VAL) motor thalamus is a key junction within the brain circuits sustaining normal and pathologic motor control functions and decision-making. In this area of thalamus, on one hand, the inhibitory nigro-thalamic pathway provides a main output from the basal ganglia, and, on the other hand, motor thalamo-cortical loops are involved in the maintenance of ramping preparatory activity before goal-directed movements. To better understand the nigral impact on thalamic activity, we recorded electrophysiological responses from VM/VAL neurons while male and female mice were performing a delayed right/left decision licking task. Analysis of correct (corr) and error trials revealed that thalamic ramping activity was stronger for premature licks (impulsive action) and weaker for trials with no licks [omission (omi)] compared with correct trials. Suppressing ramping activity through optogenetic activation of nigral terminals in the motor thalamus during the delay epoch of the task led to a reduced probability of impulsive action and an increased amount of omissions trials. We propose a parsimonious model explaining our data and conclude that a thalamic ramping mechanism contributes to the control of proper timing of action release and that inhibitory nigral inputs are sufficient to interrupt this mechanism and modulate the amount of motor impulsivity in this task. Coordinated neural activity in motor circuits is essential for correct movement preparation and execution, and even slight imbalances in neural processing can lead to failure in behavioral tasks or motor disorders. Here we focused on how failure to regulate the control of activity balance in the motor thalamus can be implicated in impulsive action release or omissions to act, through an activity ramping mechanism that is required for proper action release. Using optogenetic activation of inhibitory basal ganglia terminals in motor thalamus we show that basal ganglia input is well positioned to control this ramping activity and determine the timing of action initiation.
Topics: Animals; Female; Male; Mice; Motor Activity; Neural Pathways; Neurons; Thalamus
PubMed: 33446518
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1204-20.2020 -
Trends in Neurosciences Jun 2014Jin, Tecuapetla, and Costa combined in vivo electrophysiology with optogenetic-identification to examine firing in multiple basal ganglia nuclei during rapid motor... (Review)
Review
Jin, Tecuapetla, and Costa combined in vivo electrophysiology with optogenetic-identification to examine firing in multiple basal ganglia nuclei during rapid motor sequences. Their results support a model of basal ganglia function in which co-activation of the direct and indirect pathways facilitate appropriate, while inhibiting competing, motor programs.
Topics: Animals; Basal Ganglia; Brain; Learning; Mice; Motor Activity; Neural Pathways; Optogenetics
PubMed: 24816402
DOI: 10.1016/j.tins.2014.04.004 -
Human Brain Mapping 2000Neuroimaging studies have identified a number of cortical areas involved in the executive control of conscious actions. The areas most frequently implicated are... (Review)
Review
Neuroimaging studies have identified a number of cortical areas involved in the executive control of conscious actions. The areas most frequently implicated are prefrontal and cingulate cortices. Evidence suggests that both of these areas may be essential for executive control of willed action. Prefrontal cortex, however, may be responsible for the initial processing. Executive control is usually discussed with reference to willed actions and is assumed to regulate complex cognitive responses. Although many implicit processes involve complex responses, it is not known whether these actions are also controlled by executive processes. Significantly, some implicit tasks like those involving motor sequence learning and cross-modality priming activate the same areas of prefrontal cortex that are implicated in the executive control of willed actions. It is, however, not clear whether a single executive process controls both implicit and explicit processes, or the implicit processes are regulated by a separate set of executive control having distinct neuroanatomical location and processing properties.
Topics: Animals; Cerebral Cortex; Humans; Motor Activity; Unconscious, Psychology; Volition
PubMed: 10643728
DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0193(2000)9:1<38::aid-hbm4>3.0.co;2-t