Motor cortex articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the link between multiple movement elements and sequence-related responses in the motor cortex remains elusive. This study reveals a multiplicative joint coding mechanism during motor preparation which transfers to additive during execution, potentially explaining the linear readout of elemental movements.

    • Tianwei Wang
    • , Yun Chen
    •  & He Cui

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here the authors record the responses evoked in the hand and arm representations of M1 during intracortical microstimulation in the hand representation of S1, and show somatotopically organized connections with motor cortex. The resulting interference with motor decoding is task dependent but can be alleviated by using biomimetic stimulation.

    • Natalya D. Shelchkova
    • , John E. Downey
    •  & Sliman J. Bensmaia

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Previous work has shown speech decoding in the human brain for the development of neural speech prostheses. Here the authors show that high density µECoG electrodes can record at micro-scale spatial resolution to improve neural speech decoding.

    • Suseendrakumar Duraivel
    • , Shervin Rahimpour
    •  & Gregory B. Cogan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about how the brain encodes—and ultimately drives—the tongue’s 3D deformation. Here, the authors successfully decoded complex tongue deformation from sensorimotor cortex neurons, suggesting a cortical representation of 3D tongue shape.

    • Jeffrey D. Laurence-Chasen
    • , Callum F. Ross
    •  & Nicholas G. Hatsopoulos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Despite the rapid progress and interest in brain-machine interfaces that restore motor function, the performance of prosthetic fingers and limbs has yet to mimic native function. Here, the authors demonstrate that shallow-layer neural network decoders outperform and enable higher velocity finger movements than the current linear decoding standard.

    • Matthew S. Willsey
    • , Samuel R. Nason-Tomaszewski
    •  & Cynthia A. Chestek

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Two papers published in June 2021 used a two-photon microscope or one-photon miniature microscope to interrogate the motor cortex in behaving macaque monkeys. The imaging was performed over several months, and the direction of natural arm reaching was decoded from the population activity.

    • Masanori Matsuzaki
    •  & Teppei Ebina

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Learning skilled movements requires evolution in neural population dynamics both within and across cortical regions. Here, the authors combine simultaneous recordings of motor and premotor cortex with computational methods to show that single-trial cross-area dynamics correlate with single-trial behavior performance and skill acquisition.

    • T. L. Veuthey
    • , K. Derosier
    •  & K. Ganguly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a symptomatic treatment of Parkinson’s disease (PD) that benefits only a minority of patients. Here, the authors show that activation of cortical somatostatin interneurons alleviates motor symptoms in a mouse model of PD and may constitute a less invasive alternative than DBS.

    • Sébastien Valverde
    • , Marie Vandecasteele
    •  & Laurent Venance

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Network activity in primary motor cortex (M1) controls dexterous limb movements. Here, the authors show that the M1 population code varies according to contextual motor demands that are conveyed via the secondary motor cortex (M2).

    • Wolfgang Omlor
    • , Anna-Sophia Wahl
    •  & Fritjof Helmchen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Motor preparation processes guide movement. Here, by recording neural activity in monkeys reaching toward targets that can change location, the authors provide evidence that changing a prepared movement midway through completion reengages motor preparation.

    • K. Cora Ames
    • , Stephen I. Ryu
    •  & Krishna V. Shenoy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Can the human brain successfully control additional body parts beyond the ones we normally possess? Here, the authors study two polydactyly individuals (with an additional finger on each hand) and show that they can carry out more complex movements, performing with only one hand tasks normally requiring two.

    • C. Mehring
    • , M. Akselrod
    •  & E. Burdet

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Some cortical neurons fire together like a synchronized chorus, while others fire independently like soloists. Here, the authors show that soloist neurons in motor cortex tend to control body movements, while the choristers do not, and that soloists can become choristers by increasing inhibition.

    • Patrick A. Kells
    • , Shree Hari Gautam
    •  & Woodrow L. Shew

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) uses weak electrical currents, applied to the head, to modulate brain activity. Here, the authors show that contrary to previous assumptions, the effects of tACS on the brain may be mediated by its effect on peripheral nerves in the skin, not direct.

    • Boateng Asamoah
    • , Ahmad Khatoun
    •  & Myles Mc Laughlin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Recording the activity of neurons over large brain regions requires expanding the field of view of the optics without losing on spatial and temporal resolution. Here, the authors report a micro-opto-mechanical device that enables two-photon imaging across distant motor areas around 6 mm apart in the mouse.

    • Shin-Ichiro Terada
    • , Kenta Kobayashi
    •  & Masanori Matsuzaki

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How corticostriatal connections of different pyramidal cell types are organized, particularly in convergent circuits, has not been evaluated in detail. Here, cell type-specific Cre-driver mice reveal that pyramidal tract-type corticostriatal projections, though broadly similar to intratelencephalic-type projections from the same cortical region, are generally more restricted and variable in their topographic termination patterns.

    • Bryan M. Hooks
    • , Andrew E. Papale
    •  & Charles R. Gerfen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Movements are continually constrained by the current body position and its relation to the surroundings. Here the authors report that the population activity of monkey dorsal premotor cortex neurons dynamically represents the probability distribution of possible reach directions.

    • Joshua I. Glaser
    • , Matthew G. Perich
    •  & Konrad P. Kording

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Motor learning induces structural and functional reorganization in upper layers of motor cortex. Here the authors show that neuronal ensembles in the output layer 5b exhibit temporal dynamics during skilled learning that progressively becomes well-aligned to movement in a dopamine dependent manner.

    • Qian Li
    • , Ho Ko
    •  & Wing-Ho Yung

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Frontal eye fields (FEF) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are coactivated during cognitive tasks, but the precise format of their interaction is not known. Here the authors show that phase coupling between ACC -FEF in theta and beta frequency bands better predicts behavioural performance.

    • Sahand Babapoor-Farrokhran
    • , Martin Vinck
    •  & Stefan Everling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Single neuron responses are highly complex and dynamic yet they are able to flexibly represent behaviour through their collective activity. Here the authors demonstrate that population activity patterns of motor cortex neurons are orthogonal during successive task epochs that are linked through a simple linear function.

    • Gamaleldin F. Elsayed
    • , Antonio H. Lara
    •  & John P. Cunningham

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In online experiments with monkeys the authors demonstrate, for the first time, that incorporating neural dynamics substantially improves brain–machine interface performance. This result is consistent with a framework hypothesizing that motor cortex is a dynamical machine that generates movement.

    • Jonathan C. Kao
    • , Paul Nuyujukian
    •  & Krishna V. Shenoy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Aggregate signals in cortex are spatiotemporally organized as propagating waves across the cortical surface. Here the authors demonstrate that neurons in primary motor cortex of monkeys spatially coordinate their spiking activity in a manner that closely matches wave propagation.

    • Kazutaka Takahashi
    • , Sanggyun Kim
    •  & Nicholas G. Hatsopoulos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The use of local field potential (LFP) brain signals may allow development of more efficient and robust neural prosthetic devices. Here, Hall et al. develop a method for estimation and biofeedback control of single-neuron firing rates using signals extracted from multiple low-frequency LFPs.

    • Thomas M. Hall
    • , Kianoush Nazarpour
    •  & Andrew Jackson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Motor cortex NMDA receptors have a key role in the acquisition of associative memories. Hasan et al. generate mice lacking NMDA receptor activity in the motor cortex and find that this impairs LTP, strengthening of synapses between somatosensory and motor cortices, and associative learning.

    • Mazahir T. Hasan
    • , Samuel Hernández-González
    •  & José M. Delgado-García

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