scholarly journals Wireless recording from unrestrained monkeys reveals motor goal encoding beyond immediate reach in frontoparietal cortex

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Berger ◽  
Naubahar S. Agha ◽  
Alexander Gail
Keyword(s):  
Broad Band ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Frontoparietal Network ◽  
Markerless Motion Capture ◽  
System Neuroscience ◽  
Reach Movements

AbstractSystem neuroscience of motor cognition regarding the space beyond immediate reach mandates free, yet experimentally controlled movements. We present an experimental environment (Reach Cage) and a versatile visuo-haptic interaction system (MaCaQuE) for investigating goal-directed whole-body movements of unrestrained monkeys. Two rhesus monkeys conducted instructed walk-and-reach movements towards targets flexibly positioned in the cage. We tracked 3D multi-joint arm and head movements using markerless motion capture. Movements show small trial-to-trial variability despite being unrestrained. We wirelessly recorded 192 broad-band neural signals from three cortical sensorimotor areas simultaneously. Single unit activity is selective for different reach and walk-and-reach movements. Walk-and-reach targets could be decoded from premotor and parietal but not motor cortical activity during movement planning. The Reach Cage allows systems-level sensorimotor neuroscience studies with full-body movements in a configurable 3D spatial setting with unrestrained monkeys. We conclude that the primate frontoparietal network encodes reach goals beyond immediate reach during movement planning.

scholarly journals Wireless recording from unrestrained monkeys reveals motor goal encoding beyond immediate reach in frontoparietal cortex

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Berger ◽  
Naubahar Shahryar Agha ◽  
Alexander Gail
Keyword(s):  
Broad Band ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Neural Signals ◽  
Frontoparietal Network ◽  
Markerless Motion Capture ◽  
System Neuroscience ◽  
Reach Movements

System neuroscience of motor cognition regarding the space beyond immediate reach mandates free, yet experimentally controlled movements. We present an experimental environment (Reach Cage) and a versatile visuo-haptic interaction system (MaCaQuE) for investigating goal-directed whole-body movements of unrestrained monkeys. Two rhesus monkeys conducted instructed walk-and-reach movements towards targets flexibly positioned in the cage. We tracked 3D multi-joint arm and head movements using markerless motion capture. Movements show small trial-to-trial variability despite being unrestrained. We wirelessly recorded 192 broad-band neural signals from three cortical sensorimotor areas simultaneously. Single unit activity is selective for different reach and walk-and-reach movements. Walk-and-reach targets could be decoded from premotor and parietal but not motor cortical activity during movement planning. The Reach Cage allows systems-level sensorimotor neuroscience studies with full-body movements in a configurable 3D spatial setting with unrestrained monkeys. We conclude that the primate frontoparietal network encodes reach goals beyond immediate reach during movement planning.

Visual and Postural Constraints in Coordinated Movements of the Head in Hand Reaching Tasks

2002 ◽  
Vol 46 (17) ◽  
pp. 1636-1640 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Han Kim ◽  
Bernard J. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Hand Movement ◽  
Head Rotation ◽  
Head Movements ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Movement Onset ◽  
Major Function ◽  
Target Eccentricity ◽  
The Right ◽  
Reach Movements ◽  
Assembly Tasks

The purpose of the present study is to investigate movements of the head spatially and temporally coordinated with hand reach movements simulating industrial assembly tasks. The motions recorded from thirty subjects performing reach movements with the right hand toward eccentric targets indicate that 1) hand movement onset lags head movement onset with a duration proportional to target eccentricity; 2) the head does not aim directly at a target, but travels only a fraction of target eccentricity and often deviates away from the target substantially; and 3) head movements are constrained by the strategy of either controlling the head position in space or controlling head rotation about the torso. These results indicate that head movements are constrained by both visual and non-visual factors. While the major function of the head is to displace the visual gaze toward the target, non-visual constraints, which include postural coordination with whole body movements, also significantly affect head movements.

scholarly journals Does risk-sensitivity transfer across movements?

2013 ◽  
Vol 109 (7) ◽  
pp. 1866-1875 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan K. O'Brien ◽  
Alaa A. Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Risk Sensitivity ◽  
Risk Averse ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Risk Seeking ◽  
Risk Environments ◽  
Arm Reaching ◽  
Seeking Behavior

An intriguing finding in motor control studies is the marked effect of risk on movement decision making. However, there are inconsistent reports of risk-sensitivity across different movements and tasks, with both risk-seeking and risk-averse behavior observed. This raises the question of whether risk-sensitivity in movement decision making is context dependent and specific to the movement or task being performed. We investigated whether risk-sensitivity transfers between dissimilar movements within a single task. Healthy young adults made arm-reaching movements or whole-body leaning movements to move a cursor as close to the edge of a virtual cliff as possible without moving beyond the edge. They received points on the basis of the cursor's final proximity to the cliff edge. Risk was manipulated by increasing the point penalty associated with the cliff region and/or adding Gaussian noise to the cursor. We compared subjects' movement endpoints with endpoints predicted by a subject-specific, risk-neutral model of movement planning. Subjects demonstrated risk-seeking behavior in both movements that was consistent across risk environments, moving closer to the cliff than the model predicted. However, subjects were significantly more risk-seeking in whole-body movements. Our results present the first evidence of risk-sensitivity in whole-body movements. They also demonstrate that the direction of risk-sensitivity (i.e., risk-seeking or risk-averse) is similar between arm-reaching and whole-body movements, although degree of risk-sensitivity did not transfer from one movement to another. This finding has important implications for the ability of quantitative descriptions of decision making to generalize across movements and, ultimately, decision-making contexts.

Whole-body adaptation to novel dynamics does not transfer between effectors

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison Pienciak-Siewert ◽  
Alaa A Ahmed
Keyword(s):  
Postural Control ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Reaching Movements ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Postural Control System ◽  
Movement Dynamics ◽  
Gradual Introduction ◽  
Postural Movement ◽  
The Brain

How does the brain coordinate concurrent adaptation of arm movements and standing posture? From previous studies, the postural control system can use information about previously adapted arm movement dynamics to plan appropriate postural control; however, it is unclear whether postural control can be adapted and controlled independently of arm control. The present study addresses that question. Subjects practiced planar reaching movements while standing and grasping the handle of a robotic arm, which generated a force field to create novel perturbations. Subjects were divided into two groups, for which perturbations were introduced in either an abrupt or gradual manner. All subjects adapted to the perturbations while reaching with their dominant (right) arm, then switched to reaching with their non-dominant (left) arm. Previous studies of seated reaching movements showed that abrupt perturbation introduction led to transfer of learning between arms, but gradual introduction did not. Interestingly, in this study neither group showed evidence of transferring adapted control of arm or posture between arms. These results suggest primarily that adapted postural control cannot be transferred independently of arm control in this task paradigm. In other words, whole-body postural movement planning related to a concurrent arm task is dependent on information about arm dynamics. Finally, we found that subjects were able to adapt to the gradual perturbation while experiencing very small errors, suggesting that both error size and consistency play a role in driving motor adaptation.

scholarly journals Blunted emotion judgments of body movements in Parkinson’s disease

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Bellot ◽  
Antoine Garnier-Crussard ◽  
Elodie Pongan ◽  
Floriane Delphin-Combe ◽  
Marie-Hélène Coste ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parkinson’S Disease ◽  
Parkinson's Disease ◽  
Mirror Neuron System ◽  
Mirror Neuron ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Emotional Facial Expressions ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Point Light

AbstractSome of the behavioral disorders observed in Parkinson’s disease (PD) may be related to an altered processing of social messages, including emotional expressions. Emotions conveyed by whole body movements may be difficult to generate and be detected by PD patients. The aim of the present study was to compare valence judgments of emotional whole body expressions in individuals with PD and in healthy controls matched for age, gender and education. Twenty-eight participants (13 PD patients and 15 healthy matched control participants) were asked to rate the emotional valence of short movies depicting emotional interactions between two human characters presented with the “Point Light Displays” technique. To ensure understanding of the perceived scene, participants were asked to briefly describe each of the evaluated movies. Patients’ emotional valence evaluations were less intense than those of controls for both positive (p < 0.001) and negative (p < 0.001) emotional expressions, even though patients were able to correctly describe the depicted scene. Our results extend the previously observed impaired processing of emotional facial expressions to impaired processing of emotions expressed by body language. This study may support the hypothesis that PD affects the embodied simulation of emotional expression and the potentially involved mirror neuron system.

scholarly journals Humans use minimum cost movements in a whole-body task

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lijia Liu ◽  
Dana Ballard
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Model ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Minimum Cost ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Energetic Cost ◽  
Body Movements ◽  
Closed Curves ◽  
General Movements ◽  
Musculoskeletal Systems

AbstractHumans have elegant bodies that allow gymnastics, piano playing, and tool use, but understanding how they do this in detail is difficult because their musculoskeletal systems are extraordinarily complicated. Nonetheless, common movements like walking and reaching can be stereotypical, and a very large number of studies have shown their energetic cost to be a major factor. In contrast, one might think that general movements are very individuated and intractable, but our previous study has shown that in an arbitrary set of whole-body movements used to trace large-scale closed curves, near-identical posture sequences were chosen across different subjects, both in the average trajectories of the body’s limbs and in the variance within trajectories. The commonalities in that result motivate explanations for its generality. One explanation could be that humans also choose trajectories that are economical in cost. To test this hypothesis, we situate the tracing data within a forty eight degree of freedom human dynamic model that allows the computation of movement cost. Using the model to compare movement cost data from nominal tracings against various perturbed tracings shows that the latter are more energetically expensive, inferring that the original traces were chosen on the basis of minimum cost.

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