Multiple Nonprimary Motor Areas in the Human Cortex

1997 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 2164-2174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gereon R. Fink ◽  
Richard S. J. Frackowiak ◽  
Uwe Pietrzyk ◽  
Richard E. Passingham

Fink, Gereon R., Richard S. J. Frackowiak, Uwe Pietrzyk, and Richard E. Passingham. Multiple nonprimary motor areas in the human cortex. J. Neurophysiol. 77: 2164–2174, 1997. We measured the distribution of regional cerebral blood flow with positron emission tomography while three subjects moved their hand, shoulder, or leg. The images were coregistered with each individual's anatomic magnetic resonance scans. The data were analyzed for each individual to avoid intersubject averaging and so to preserve individual gyral anatomy. Instead of inspecting all pixels, we prospectively restricted the data analysis to particular areas of interest. These were defined on basis of the anatomic and physiological literature on nonhuman primates. By examining only a subset of areas, we strengthened the power of the statistical analysis and thereby increased the confidence in reporting single subject data. On the lateral convexity, motor related activity was found for all three subjects in the primary motor cortex, lateral premotor cortex, and an opercular area within the premotor cortex. In addition, there was activation of somatosensory cortex (SI), the supplementary somatosensory area (SII) in the Sylvian fissure, and parietal association areas (Brodmann areas 5 and 40). There was also activation in the insula. We suggest that the activation in the dorsal premotor cortex may correspond with dorsal premotor area (PMd) as described in the macaque brain. We propose three hypotheses as to the probable location of vental premotor area (PMv) in the human brain. On the medial surface, motor-related activity was found for all three subjects in the leg areas of the primary motor cortex and somatosensory cortex and also activity for the hand, shoulder, and leg in the supplementary motor area (SMA) on the dorsal medial convexity and in three areas in the cingulate sulcus. We suggest that the three cingulate areas may correspond with rostral cingulate premotor area, dorsal cingulate motor area (CMAd), and ventral cingulate motor area (CMAv) as identified in the macaque brain. Somatotopic mapping was demonstrated in the primary motor and primary somatosensory cortex. In all three subjects, the arm region lay anterior to the leg region in parietal area 5. Also in all three subjects, the arm region lay anterior to the leg region in the supplementary motor cortex.

Stroke ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Schulz ◽  
Marlene Bönstrup ◽  
Stephanie Guder ◽  
Jingchun Liu ◽  
Benedikt Frey ◽  
...  

Background and Purpose: Cortical beta oscillations are reported to serve as robust measures of the integrity of the human motor system. Their alterations after stroke, such as reduced movement-related beta desynchronization in the primary motor cortex, have been repeatedly related to the level of impairment. However, there is only little data whether such measures of brain function might directly relate to structural brain changes after stroke. Methods: This multimodal study investigated 18 well-recovered patients with stroke (mean age 65 years, 12 males) by means of task-related EEG and diffusion-weighted structural MRI 3 months after stroke. Beta power at rest and movement-related beta desynchronization was assessed in 3 key motor areas of the ipsilesional hemisphere that are the primary motor cortex (M1), the ventral premotor area and the supplementary motor area. Template trajectories of corticospinal tracts (CST) originating from M1, premotor cortex, and supplementary motor area were used to quantify the microstructural state of CST subcomponents. Linear mixed-effects analyses were used to relate tract-related mean fractional anisotropy to EEG measures. Results: In the present cohort, we detected statistically significant reductions in ipsilesional CST fractional anisotropy but no alterations in EEG measures when compared with healthy controls. However, in patients with stroke, there was a significant association between both beta power at rest ( P =0.002) and movement-related beta desynchronization ( P =0.003) in M1 and fractional anisotropy of the CST specifically originating from M1. Similar structure-function relationships were neither evident for ventral premotor area and supplementary motor area, particularly with respect to their CST subcomponents originating from premotor cortex and supplementary motor area, in patients with stroke nor in controls. Conclusions: These data suggest there might be a link connecting microstructure of the CST originating from M1 pyramidal neurons and beta oscillatory activity, measures which have already been related to motor impairment in patients with stroke by previous reports.


2003 ◽  
Vol 90 (5) ◽  
pp. 3304-3316 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Henrik Ehrsson ◽  
Stefan Geyer ◽  
Eiichi Naito

We investigate whether imagery of voluntary movements of different body parts activates somatotopical sections of the human motor cortices. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to detect the cortical activity when 7 healthy subjects imagine performing repetitive (0.5-Hz) flexion/extension movements of the right fingers or right toes, or horizontal movements of the tongue. We also collected functional images when the subjects actually executed these movements and used these data to define somatotopical representations in the motor areas. In this study, we relate the functional activation maps to cytoarchitectural population maps of areas 4a, 4p, and 6 in the same standard anatomical space. The important novel findings are 1) that imagery of hand movements specifically activates the hand sections of the contralateral primary motor cortex (area 4a) and the contralateral dorsal premotor cortex (area 6) and a hand representation located in the caudal cingulate motor area and the most ventral part of the supplementary motor area; 2) that when imagining making foot movements, the foot zones of the posterior part of the contralateral supplementary motor area (area 6) and the contralateral primary motor cortex (area 4a) are active; and 3) that imagery of tongue movements activates the tongue region of the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex bilaterally (areas 4a, 4p, and 6). These results demonstrate that imagery of action engages the somatotopically organized sections of the primary motor cortex in a systematic manner as well as activating some body-part-specific representations in the nonprimary motor areas. Thus the content of the mental motor image, in this case the body part, is reflected in the pattern of motor cortical activation.


2005 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 550-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiyoshi Kurata

The activity of neurons in the motor nuclei of the thalamus that project to the cortical motor areas (the primary motor cortex, the ventral and dorsal premotor cortex, and the supplementary motor area) was investigated in monkeys that were performing a task in which wrist extension and flexion movements were instructed by visuospatial cues before the onset of movement. Movement was triggered by a visual, auditory, or somatosensory stimulus. Thalamocortical neurons were identified by a spike collision, and exhibited 2 distinct types of task-related activity: 1) a sustained change in activity during the instructed preparation period in response to the instruction cues (set-related activity); and 2) phasic changes in activity during the reaction and movement time periods (movement-related activity). A number of set- and moment-related neurons exhibited direction selectivity. Most movement-related neurons were similarly active, irrespective of the different sensory modalities of the cue for movement. These properties of neuronal activity were similar, regardless of their target cortical motor areas. There were no significant differences in the antidromic latencies of neurons that projected to the primary and nonprimary motor areas. These results suggest that the thalamocortical neurons play an important role in the preparation for, and initiation and execution of, the movements, but are less important than neurons of the nonprimary cortical motor areas in modality-selective sensorimotor transformation. It is likely that such transformations take place within the nonprimary cortical motor areas, but not through thalamocortical information channels.


2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (4) ◽  
pp. 2008-2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kiyoshi Kurata

The ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and the primary motor cortex (MI) of monkeys participate in various sensorimotor integrations, such as the transformation of coordinates from visual to motor space, because the areas contain movement-related neuronal activity reflecting either visual or motor space. In addition to relationship to visual and motor space, laterality of the activity could indicate stages in the visuomotor transformation. Thus we examined laterality and relationship to visual and motor space of movement-related neuronal activity in the PMv and MI of monkeys performing a fast-reaching task with the left or right arm, toward targets with visual and motor coordinates that had been dissociated by shift prisms. We determined laterality of each activity quantitatively and classified it into four types: activity that consistently depended on target locations in either head-centered visual coordinates (V-type) or motor coordinates (M-type) and those that had either differential or nondifferential activity for both coordinates (B- and N-types). A majority of M-type neurons in the areas had preferences for reaching movements with the arm contralateral to the hemisphere where neuronal activity was recorded. In contrast, most of the V-type neurons were recorded in the PMv and exhibited less laterality than the M-type. The B- and N-types were recorded in the PMv and MI and exhibited intermediate properties between the V- and M-types when laterality and correlations to visual and motor space of them were jointly examined. These results suggest that the cortical motor areas contribute to the transformation of coordinates to generate final motor commands.


2004 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 412-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norihiro Sadato ◽  
Eiichi Naito

Illusory kinesthetic sensation was influenced by motor imagery of the wrist following tendon vibration. The imagery and the illusion conditions commonly activated the contralateral cingulate motor area, supplementary motor area, dorsal premotor cortex, and ipsilateral cerebellum. This supports the notion that motor imagery is a mental rehearsal of movement, during which expected kinesthetic sensation is emulated by recruiting multiple motor areas, commonly activated by pure kinesthesia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taihei Ninomiya ◽  
Ken-ichi Inoue ◽  
Eiji Hoshi ◽  
Masahiko Takada

AbstractThe primate frontal lobe processes diverse motor information in parallel through multiple motor-related areas. For example, the supplementary motor area (SMA) is mainly involved in internally-triggered movements, whereas the premotor cortex (PM) is highly responsible for externally-guided movements. The primary motor cortex (M1) deals with both aspects of movements to execute a single motor behavior. To elucidate how the cortical motor system is structured to process a variety of information, the laminar distribution patterns of signals were examined between SMA and M1, or PM and M1 in macaque monkeys by using dual anterograde tract-tracing. Dense terminal labeling was observed in layers 1 and upper 2/3 of M1 after one tracer injection into SMA, another tracer injection into the dorsal division of PM resulted in prominent labeling in the deeper portion of layer 2/3. Weaker labeling was also visible in layer 5 in both cases. On the other hand, inputs from M1 terminated in both the superficial and the deep layers of SMA and PM. The present data indicate that distinct types of motor information are arranged in M1 in a layer-specific fashion to be orchestrated through a microcircuit within M1.


2007 ◽  
Vol 98 (1) ◽  
pp. 414-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Winston D. Byblow ◽  
James P. Coxon ◽  
Cathy M. Stinear ◽  
Melanie K. Fleming ◽  
Garry Williams ◽  
...  

Coincident hand and foot movements are more reliably performed in the same direction than in opposite directions. Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to assess motor cortex function, we examined the physiological basis of these movements across three novel experiments. Experiment 1 demonstrated that upper limb corticomotor excitability changed in a way that facilitated isodirectional movements of the hand and foot, during phasic and isometric muscle activation conditions. Experiment 2 demonstrated that motor cortex inhibition was modified with active, but not passive, foot movement in a manner that facilitated hand movement in the direction of foot movement. Together, these findings demonstrate that the coupling between motor representations within motor cortex is activity dependent. Because there are no known connections between hand and foot areas within primary motor cortex, experiment 3 used a dual-coil paired-pulse TMS protocol to examine functional connectivity between secondary and primary motor areas during active ankle dorsiflexion and plantarflexion. Dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and supplementary motor area (SMA) conditioning, but not ventral premotor cortex (PMv) conditioning, produced distinct phases of task-dependent modulation of excitability of forearm representations within primary motor cortex (M1). Networks involving PMd–M1 facilitate isodirectional movements of hand and foot, whereas networks involving SMA–M1 facilitate corticomotor pathways nonspecifically, which may help to stabilize posture during interlimb coordination. These results may have implications for targeted neurorehabilitation after stroke.


2004 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 374-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Massimiliano Oliveri ◽  
Chiara Finocchiaro ◽  
Kevin Shapiro ◽  
Massimo Gangitano ◽  
Alfonso Caramazza ◽  
...  

A number of researchers have proposed that the premotor and motor areas are critical for the representation of words that refer to actions, but not objects. Recent evidence against this hypothesis indicates that the left premotor cortex is more sensitive to grammatical differences than to conceptual differences between words. However, it may still be the case that other anterior motor regions are engaged in processing a word's sensorimotor features. In the present study, we used singleand paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation to test the hypothesis that left primary motor cortex is activated during the retrieval of words (nouns and verbs) associated with specific actions. We found that activation in the motor cortex increased for action words compared with non-action words, but was not sensitive to the grammatical category of the word being produced. These results complement previous findings and support the notion that producing a word activates some brain regions relevant to the sensorimotor properties associated with that word regardless of its grammatical category.


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