Contrasting neuronal activity in supplementary and precentral motor cortex of monkeys. I. Responses to instructions determining motor responses to forthcoming signals of different modalities

1985 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-141 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tanji ◽  
K. Kurata
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Present Report ◽  
Tone Burst ◽  
Motor Area ◽  
Activity Increase ◽  
Auditory Mode ◽  
Key Press ◽  
Types Of Instruction ◽  
Increased Activity

The present report contrasts neuronal activity in two motor cortical fields after instructions that determine which of two sensory signals will trigger a movement and which will not. The goal of the study was to determine possible differential roles of the two cortical fields in the process of preparing to move in response to one external cue and to ignore another. Single-cell recordings were made from the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the precentral motor area (PCM) of monkeys trained to perform key-press movements in two different modes. In the auditory mode, an instruction signal warned the animal to prepare to start the movement promptly in response to a forthcoming 1,000-Hz tone burst (trigger signal), but to remain motionless if the signal was vibrotactile (nontrigger signal). In the tactile mode, the trigger and nontrigger signals were reversed: a different instruction signal warned the animal to prepare to perform the key-press movement in response to the vibrotactile cue, but to withhold it in response to the 1,000-Hz tone. The instruction signals were auditory tones of 300 Hz for the auditory mode and 100 Hz for the tactile mode. Out of 259 task-related SMA neurons, 128 (49%) responded to instructions. Three types of instruction responses were observed: 1) 95 neurons showed continuous instruction-induced activity changes lasting until the occurrence of the movement-triggering signal, regardless of whether an intervening nontrigger signal occurred. 2) 24 neurons showed increased activity until the occurrence of the nontriggering signal, after which the activity subsided. When there was no nontrigger signal, the activity increased during a period when the nontrigger signal might have been given. 3) Nine neurons responded with a transient, short-latency discharge after the instruction. The responses of SMA neurons to two instructions were often different. Forty-four SMA neurons exhibited a selective response to only one of the two instructions. In 43 neurons the response was differential, with the magnitude of activity increase or decrease being at least three times greater after one instruction than the other. In the remaining 41 neurons the response was nondifferential. Out of 112 task-related PCM neurons, 25 (22%) responded to the instructions. In the majority of them (21 neurons), the instruction response was nondifferential.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

scholarly journals Distinct neuronal organizations of the caudal cingulate motor area and supplementary motor area in monkeys for ipsilateral and contralateral hand movements

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (7) ◽  
pp. 2845-2858 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshihisa Nakayama ◽  
Osamu Yokoyama ◽  
Eiji Hoshi
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Functional Organization ◽  
Hand Movement ◽  
Motor Area ◽  
Hand Movements ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Cingulate Motor Area ◽  
Contralateral Hand ◽  
Hand Preferences

The caudal cingulate motor area (CMAc) and the supplementary motor area (SMA) play important roles in movement execution. The present study aimed to characterize the functional organization of these regions during movement by investigating laterality representations in the CMAc and SMA of monkeys via an examination of neuronal activity during a button press movement with either the right or left hand. Three types of movement-related neuronal activity were observed: 1) with only the contralateral hand, 2) with only the ipsilateral hand, and 3) with either hand. Neurons in the CMAc represented contralateral and ipsilateral hand movements to the same degree, whereas neuronal representations in the SMA were biased toward contralateral hand movement. Furthermore, recording neuronal activities using a linear-array multicontact electrode with 24 contacts spaced 150 μm apart allowed us to analyze the spatial distribution of neurons exhibiting particular hand preferences at the submillimeter scale. The CMAc and SMA displayed distinct microarchitectural organizations. The contralateral, ipsilateral, and bilateral CMAc neurons were distributed homogeneously, whereas SMA neurons exhibiting identical hand preferences tended to cluster. These findings indicate that the CMAc, which is functionally organized in a less structured manner than the SMA is, controls contralateral and ipsilateral hand movements in a counterbalanced fashion, whereas the SMA, which is more structured, preferentially controls contralateral hand movements.

Contrasting neuronal activity in supplementary and precentral motor cortex of monkeys. II. Responses to movement triggering vs. nontriggering sensory signals

1985 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Kurata ◽  
J. Tanji
Keyword(s):  
Motor Cortex ◽  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Anterior Part ◽  
Short Latency ◽  
Vibrotactile Stimulus ◽  
Auditory Signal ◽  
Activity Increase ◽  
Key Press ◽  
Short Latency Response ◽  
Latency Response

This report compares neuronal activity in the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the precentral motor cortex (PCM) in response to auditory and vibrotactile signals that required a monkey either to start a key-press movement or to refrain from initiating such a movement. Confirming previous reports (3, 9), a vibrotactile stimulus that triggered movement gave rise to two phases of neuronal activity in PCM neurons: a short-latency response time-locked to the occurrence of the vibrotactile stimulus, and a response related to the time of onset of the movement. When the animal was required to refrain from moving in response to the vibrotactile signal, the short-latency response was often attenuated and there was rarely any later activity. There was no attenuation of the short-latency response to the nontriggering vibrotactile stimulus in the anterior part of the postcentral somatosensory cortex. As reported previously (23), short-latency stimulus-locked responses of SMA neurons to a vibrotactile signals were less frequent and the magnitude of the responses was smaller than in the PCM. However, the properties of the later-occurring responses of SMA neurons were often different from those of PCM neurons. Many SMA neurons responded to both the triggering and nontriggering vibrotactile signals. Twenty-nine SMA neurons responded to the nontriggering signal only and not to the movement-triggering signal. Most of the PCM neurons were active after the auditory signal only when the signal was a trigger to start the key-press movement; three neurons exhibited a slight activity increase after the nontriggering auditory signal. In contrast, a number of SMA neurons responded to the nontriggering auditory signal as well as the movement-triggering auditory signal. Twenty-three neurons responded exclusively to the nontriggering auditory signal. These results indicate the extent to which SMA neuronal activity, in contrast to that of the PCM, is related to factors other than the execution of movement.

scholarly journals Neuronal Correlates of the Perceptual Invariance of Words and Other Sounds in the Supplementary Motor Area of Macaques

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Melchor ◽  
Isaac Morán ◽  
José Vergara ◽  
Tonatiuh Figueroa ◽  
Javier Perez-Orive ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Functional Mri ◽  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Motor Skills ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Motor Area ◽  
False Alarms ◽  
Complex Sounds ◽  
Sensory Motor ◽  
Perceptual Invariance ◽  
The Brain

ABSTRACTThe supplementary motor area (SMA) of the brain is critical for integrating memory and sensory signals into perceptual decisions. For example, in macaques, SMA activity correlates with decisions based on the comparison of sounds.1 In humans, functional MRI shows SMA activation during the invariant recognition of words pronounced by different speakers.2 Nevertheless, the neuronal correlates of perceptual invariance are unknown. Here we show that the SMA of macaques associates novel sounds with behaviors triggered by similar learned categories when recognizing sounds such as words. Notably, the neuronal activity at single and population levels correlates with the monkeys’ behaviors (e.g. hits and false alarms). Our results demonstrate that invariant recognitions of complex sounds involve premotor computations in areas other than the temporal and parietal speech areas. Therefore, we propose that perceptual invariance depends on motor predictions and not only sensory representations. We anticipate that studies on speech will observe sensory-motor transformations of acoustic information into motor skills.

Neuronal Activity in the Supplementary Motor Area of Monkeys Adapting to a New Dynamic Environment

2004 ◽  
Vol 91 (1) ◽  
pp. 449-473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camillo Padoa-Schioppa ◽  
Chiang-Shan Ray Li ◽  
Emilio Bizzi
Keyword(s):  
Neuronal Activity ◽  
Supplementary Motor Area ◽  
Dynamic Environment ◽  
Motor Area ◽  
Reaching Movements ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Visually Guided Reaching ◽  
Movement Dynamics ◽  
The Central Nervous System ◽  
Plastic Changes

To execute visually guided reaching movements, the central nervous system (CNS) must transform a desired hand trajectory (kinematics) into appropriate muscle-related commands (dynamics). It has been suggested that the CNS might face this challenging computation by using internal forward models for the dynamics. Previous work in humans found that new internal models can be acquired through experience. In a series of studies in monkeys, we investigated how neurons in the motor areas of the frontal lobe reflect the movement dynamics and how their activity changes when monkeys learn a new internal model. Here we describe the results for the supplementary motor area (SMA-proper, or SMA). In the experiments, monkeys executed visually guided reaching movements and adapted to an external perturbing force field. The experimental design allowed dissociating the neuronal activity related to movement dynamics from that related to movement kinematics. It also allowed dissociating the changes related to motor learning from the activity related to motor performance (kinematics and dynamics). We show that neurons in SMA reflect the movement dynamics individually and as a population, and that their activity undergoes a variety of plastic changes when monkeys adapt to a new dynamic environment.

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