Differential Grey Matter Changes in Sensorimotor Cortex Related to Exceptional Fine Motor Skills

Functional changes in sensorimotor representation occur in response to use and lesion throughout life. Emerging evidence suggests that functional changes are paralleled by respective macroscopic structural changes. In the present study we used voxel-based morphometry to investigate sensorimotor cortex in subjects with congenitally malformed upper extremities. We expected increased or decreased grey matter to parallel the enlarged or reduced functional representations we reported previously. More specifically, we expected decreased grey matter values in lateral sensorimotor cortex related to compromised hand function and increased grey matter values in medial sensorimotor cortex due to compensatory foot use. We found a medial cluster of grey matter increase in subjects with frequent, hand-like compensatory foot use. This increase was predominantly seen for lateral premotor, supplementary motor, and motor areas and only marginally involved somatosensory cortex. Contrary to our expectation, subjects with a reduced number of fingers, who had shown shrinkage of the functional hand representation previously, did not show decreased grey matter values within lateral sensorimotor cortex. Our data suggest that functional plastic changes in sensorimotor cortex can be associated with increases in grey matter but may also occur in otherwise macroscopically normal appearing grey matter volumes. Furthermore, macroscopic structural changes in motor and premotor areas may be observed without respective changes in somatosensory cortex.     

Infants’ Somatotopic Neural Responses to Seeing Human Actions: I’ve Got You under My Skin

Human infants rapidly learn new skills and customs via imitation, but the neural linkages between action perception and production are not well understood. Neuroscience studies in adults suggest that a key component of imitation–identifying the corresponding body part used in the acts of self and other–has an organized neural signature. In adults, perceiving someone using a specific body part (e.g., hand vs. foot) is associated with activation of the corresponding area of the sensory and/or motor strip in the observer’s brain–a phenomenon called neural somatotopy. Here we examine whether preverbal infants also exhibit somatotopic neural responses during the observation of others’ actions. 14-month-old infants were randomly assigned to watch an adult reach towards and touch an object using either her hand or her foot. The scalp electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded and event-related changes in the sensorimotor mu rhythm were analyzed. Mu rhythm desynchronization was greater over hand areas of sensorimotor cortex during observation of hand actions and was greater over the foot area for observation of foot actions. This provides the first evidence that infants’ observation of someone else using a particular body part activates the corresponding areas of sensorimotor cortex. We hypothesize that this somatotopic organization in the developing brain supports imitation and cultural learning. The findings connect developmental cognitive neuroscience, adult neuroscience, action representation, and behavioral imitation.     

Analysis of inphase interaction pattern in EEG

Inphase interactions among EEG signals recorded using eight electrodes were investigated. The inphase interaction parameters are presented in two ways: (1) matrix form in which the number of inphase interactions are tabulated; and (2) histogram in which the number of inphase interactions are plotted pair-wise between two sites as a function of phase delays in milliseconds. The highest number of interactions occurs between 0 and 8 ms in normal brains. The values of interaction parameters are enhanced by various activities. For example, inphase interaction parameters increase in the motor area in the right hemisphere if the EEG is recorded during repeated left fist clenching. Inphase interactions are drastically altered by the presence of a tumor. We studied the inphase interactions of the EEG of a patient having an occipital tumor. The interaction parameters are greatly diminished in this area, indicating a severe impairment of neuronal communications between both hemispheres in the occipital region. The confidence limits of the changes in inphase interaction parameters during fist clenching are tested statistically using the Student's t test. The test shows that the interaction parameters increase, in general, with 1–5% confidence limits in respective cortex areas as a result of fist clenching.     

Coherence Potentials: Loss-Less,All-or-None Network Events in the Cortex

Transient associations among neurons are thought to underlie memory and behavior. However, little is known about how such associations occur or how they can be identified. Here we recorded ongoing local field potential (LFP) activity at multiple sites within the cortex of awake monkeys and organotypic cultures of cortex. We show that when the composite activity of a local neuronal group exceeds a threshold, its activity pattern, as reflected in the LFP, occurs without distortion at other cortex sites via fast synaptic transmission. These large-amplitude LFPs, which we call coherence potentials, extend up to hundreds of milliseconds and mark periods of loss-less spread of temporal and amplitude information much like action potentials at the single-cell level. However, coherence potentials have an additional degree of freedom in the diversity of their waveforms, which provides a high-dimensional parameter for encoding information and allows identification of particular associations. Such nonlinear behavior is analogous to the spread of ideas and behaviors in social networks.     

Spatiotemporal dynamics of cortical sensorimotor integration in behaving mice

Tactile information is actively acquired and processed in the brain through concerted interactions between movement and sensation. Somatosensory input is often the result of self-generated movement during the active touch of objects, and conversely, sensory information is used to refine motor control. There must therefore be important interactions between sensory and motor pathways, which we chose to investigate in the mouse whisker sensorimotor system. Voltage-sensitive dye was applied to the neocortex of mice to directly image the membrane potential dynamics of sensorimotor cortex with subcolumnar spatial resolution and millisecond temporal precision. Single brief whisker deflections evoked highly distributed depolarizing cortical sensory responses, which began in the primary somatosensory barrel cortex and subsequently excited the whisker motor cortex. The spread of sensory information to motor cortex was dynamically regulated by behavior and correlated with the generation of sensory-evoked whisker movement. Sensory processing in motor cortex may therefore contribute significantly to active tactile sensory perception.     

Evaluation of EEG Oscillatory Patterns and Cognitive Process during Simple and Compound Limb Motor Imagery

Motor imagery (MI), sharing similar neural representations to motor execution, is regarded as a window to investigate the cognitive motor processes. However, in comparison to simple limb motor imagery, significantly less work has been reported on brain oscillatory patterns induced by compound limb motor imagery which involves several parts of limbs. This study aims to investigate differences of the electroencephalogram (EEG) patterns as well as cognitive process between simple limb motor imagery and compound limb motor imagery. Ten subjects participated in the experiment involving three tasks of simple limb motor imagery (left hand, right hand, feet) and three tasks of compound limb motor imagery (both hands, left hand combined with right foot, right hand combined with left foot). Simultaneous imagination of different limbs contributes to the activation of larger cortical areas as well as two estimated sources located at corresponding motor areas within beta rhythm. Compared with simple limb motor imagery, compound limb motor imagery presents a network with more effective interactions overlying larger brain regions, additionally shows significantly larger causal flow over sensorimotor areas and larger causal density over both sensorimotor areas and neighboring regions. On the other hand, compound limb motor imagery also shows significantly larger 10–11 Hz alpha desynchronization at occipital areas and central theta synchronization. Furthermore, the phase-locking value (PLV) between central and occipital areas of left/right hand combined with contralateral foot imagery is significantly larger than that of simple limb motor imagery. All these findings imply that there exist apparent intrinsic distinctions of neural mechanism between simple and compound limb motor imagery, which presents a more complex effective connectivity network and may involve a more complex cognitive process during information processing.     

Temporal and Motor Representation of Rhythm in Fronto-Parietal Cortical Areas: An fMRI Study

When sounds occur with temporally structured patterns, we can feel a rhythm. To memorize a rhythm, perception of its temporal patterns and organization of them into a hierarchically structured sequence are necessary. On the other hand, rhythm perception can often cause unintentional body movements. Thus, we hypothesized that rhythm information can be manifested in two different ways; temporal and motor representations. The motor representation depends on effectors, such as the finger or foot, whereas the temporal representation is effector-independent. We tested our hypothesis with a working memory paradigm to elucidate neuronal correlates of temporal or motor representation of rhythm and to reveal the neural networks associated with these representations. We measured brain activity by fMRI while participants memorized rhythms and reproduced them by tapping with the right finger, left finger, or foot, or by articulation. The right inferior frontal gyrus and the inferior parietal lobule exhibited significant effector-independent activations during encoding and retrieval of rhythm information, whereas the left inferior parietal lobule and supplementary motor area (SMA) showed effector-dependent activations during retrieval. These results suggest that temporal sequences of rhythm are probably represented in the right fronto-parietal network, whereas motor sequences of rhythm can be represented in the SMA-parietal network.     

Changes in power and coherence of brain activity in human sensorimotor cortex during performance of visuomotor tasks

Electrocorticograms (ECoG) were recorded using subdural grid electrodes in forearm sensorimotor cortex of six human subjects. The subjects performed three visuomotor tasks, tracking a moving visual target with a joystick-controlled cursor; threading pieces of tubing; and pinching the fingers sequentially against the thumb. Control conditions were resting and active wrist extension. ECoGs were recorded at 14 sites in hand- and arm-sensorimotor area, functionally identified with electrical stimulation. For each behavior we computed spectral power of ECoG in each site and coherence in all pair-wise sites. In three out of six subjects, gamma-oscillations were observed when the subjects started the tasks. All subjects showed widespread power decrease in the range of 11-20 Hz and power increase in the 31-60 Hz ranges during performance of the visuomotor tasks. The changes in gamma-range power were more vigorous during the tracking and threading tasks compared with the wrist extension. Coherence analysis also showed similar task-related changes in coherence estimates. In contrast to the power changes, coherence estimates increased not only in gamma-range but also at lower frequencies during the manipulative visuomotor tasks. Paired sites with significant increases in coherence estimates were located within and between sensory and motor areas. These results support the hypothesis that coherent cortical activity may play a role in sensorimotor integration or attention.     

Implicit, predictive timing draws upon the same scalar representation of time as explicit timing

It is not yet known whether the scalar properties of explicit timing are also displayed by more implicit, predictive forms of timing. We investigated whether performance in both explicit and predictive timing tasks conformed to the two psychophysical properties of scalar timing: the Psychophysical law and Weber's law. Our explicit temporal generalization task required overt estimation of the duration of an empty interval bounded by visual markers, whereas our temporal expectancy task presented visual stimuli at temporally predictable intervals, which facilitated motor preparation thus speeding target detection. The Psychophysical Law and Weber's Law were modeled, respectively, by (1) the functional dependence between mean subjective time and real time (2) the linearity of the relationship between timing variability and duration. Results showed that performance for predictive, as well as explicit, timing conformed to both psychophysical properties of interval timing. Both tasks showed the same linear relationship between subjective and real time, demonstrating that the same representational mechanism is engaged whether it is transferred into an overt estimate of duration or used to optimise sensorimotor behavior. Moreover, variability increased with increasing duration during both tasks, consistent with a scalar representation of time in both predictive and explicit timing. However, timing variability was greater during predictive timing, at least for durations greater than 200 msec, and ascribable to temporal, rather than non-temporal, mechanisms engaged by the task. These results suggest that although the same internal representation of time was used in both tasks, its external manifestation varied as a function of temporal task goals.     

Applying support vector regression analysis on grip force level-related corticomuscular coherence

Voluntary motor performance is the result of cortical commands driving muscle actions. Corticomuscular coherence can be used to examine the functional coupling or communication between human brain and muscles. To investigate the effects of grip force level on corticomuscular coherence in an accessory muscle, this study proposed an expanded support vector regression (ESVR) algorithm to quantify the coherence between electroencephalogram (EEG) from sensorimotor cortex and surface electromyogram (EMG) from brachioradialis in upper limb. A measure called coherence proportion was introduced to compare the corticomuscular coherence in the alpha (7–15Hz), beta (15–30Hz) and gamma (30–45Hz) band at 25 % maximum grip force (MGF) and 75 % MGF. Results show that ESVR could reduce the influence of deflected signals and summarize the overall behavior of multiple coherence curves. Coherence proportion is more sensitive to grip force level than coherence area. The significantly higher corticomuscular coherence occurred in the alpha (p?p?p?相似文献   

The participation of the cholinergic system of the rat sensorimotor cortex in regulating different types of movements

To study the role of the cholinergic system of the sensorimotor cortex in regulation of different manipulatory movements and locomotion of Wistar rats, the effects of injections of cholinergic drugs (a cholinergic agonist carbachol and an antagonist scopolamine) into the area of forepaw representation in the sensorimotor cortex on motor activity and performance of manipulatory movements (with prolonged and short pushing) were analyzed. The drugs were injected via special cannulae stereotaxically implanted into the cortex during surgery carried out under Nembutal anesthesia. Carbachol injections (0.03-3 micrograms in 1 microliter of physiologic solution) into the cortex resulted in a significant slowing down of both types of movements as well as an increase in locomotion in the open-field test. Injections of scopolamine (0.3-3 micrograms) into the same cortical area were accompanied by an increase in the number of fast manipulatory movements without significant changes in locomotor activity. The obtained evidence suggests that the cholinergic system of the sensorimotor cortex indifferent manners regulates the innate (locomotion) and acquired movements which require different periods of maintaining the muscle tone of the forepaw (short-time periods for the usual movements necessary for food taking from the narrow horizontal tube and prolonged periods for the learned slow movements with additional tactile and tonic components).     

Motor polarization dominance and "animal hypnosis"

Two kinds of dominanta were simultaneously formed under conditions of chronic experiments in rabbits. The motor polarization dominanta was formed under exposure of the right sensorimotor cortex of an animal to direct anodic current, and the state of "animal hypnosis" (the second dominanta) was induced. Animal behavior and electrophysiological characteristics were recorded. It was shown that the "animal hypnosis" induced at the optimum of the right motor polarization dominanta inhibited the motor reaction of the "dominant" extremity to testing stimuli. After the "animal hypnosis session, exposure of the right sensorimotor cortex to anodic current produced the latent excitation focus, which did not reach the level of summation. Two days later, exposure to testing stimuli developed the latent foci at first in the right cortex and then in subcortical structures. In the course of recovery of the motor polarization dominanta and its further change for the state characteristic of the "animal hypnosis", the patterns of cortical EEG coherence in the delta range typical of each kind of dominanta alternated in parallel with the time course of state changes.     

Muscle fatigue-induced enhancement of corticomuscular coherence following sustained submaximal isometric contraction of the tibialis anterior muscle

Oscillatory activity of the sensorimotor cortex shows coherence with muscle activity within the 15- to 35-Hz frequency band (β-band) during weak to moderate sustained isometric contraction. We aimed to examine the acute changes in this corticomuscular coupling due to muscle fatigue and its effect on the steadiness of the exerted force. We quantified the coherence between the electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded over the sensorimotor cortex and the rectified surface electromyogram (EMG) of the tibialis anterior muscle as well as the coefficient of variance of the dorsiflexion force (Force(CV)) and sum of the auto-power spectral density function of the force within the β-band (Force(β-PSD)) during 30% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) for 60 s before (prefatiguing task) and after (postfatiguing task) muscle fatigue induced by sustained isometric contraction at 50% of MVC until exhaustion in seven healthy male subjects. The magnitude of the EEG-EMG coherence increased in the postfatiguing task in six of seven subjects. The maximal peak of EEG-EMG coherence stayed within the β-band in both pre- and postfatiguing tasks. Interestingly, two subjects, who had no significant EEG-EMG coherence in the prefatiguing task, showed significant coherence in the postfatiguing task. Additionally, Force(CV) and Force(β-PSD) significantly increased after muscle fatigue. These data suggest that when muscle fatigue develops, the central nervous system enhances oscillatory muscular activity in the β-band stronger coupled with the sensorimotor cortex activity accomplishing the sustained isometric contraction at lower performance levels.     

The role of ventral premotor cortex in action execution and action understanding

The human ventral premotor cortex overlaps, at least in part, with Broca's region in the dominant cerebral hemisphere, that is known to mediate the production of language and contributes to language comprehension. This region is constituted of Brodmann's areas 44 and 45 in the inferior frontal gyrus. We summarize the evidence that the motor related part of Broca's region is localized in the opercular portion of the inferior frontal cortex, mainly in area 44 of Brodmann. According to our own data, there seems to be a homology between Brodmann area 44 in humans and the monkey area F5. The non-language related motor functions of Broca's region comprise complex hand movements, associative sensorimotor learning and sensorimotor integration. Brodmann's area 44 is also a part of a specialized parieto-premotor network and interacts significantly with the neighbouring premotor areas. In the ventral premotor area F5 of monkeys, the so called mirror neurons have been found which discharge both when the animal performs a goal-directed hand action and when it observes another individual performing the same or a similar action. More recently, in the same area mirror neurons responding not only to the observation of mouth actions, but also to sounds characteristic to actions have been found. In humans, through an fMRI study, it has been shown that the observation of actions performed with the hand, the mouth and the foot leads to the activation of different sectors of Broca's area and premotor cortex, according to the effector involved in the observed action, following a somatotopic pattern which resembles the classical motor cortex homunculus. On the other hand the evidence is growing that human ventral premotor cortex, especially Brodmann's area 44, is involved in polymodal action processing. These results strongly support the existence of an execution-observation matching system (mirror neuron system). It has been proposed that this system is involved in polymodal action recognition and might represent a precursor of language processing. Experimental evidence in favour of this hypothesis both in the monkey and humans is shortly reviewed.     

Oscillatory coupling in writing and writer's cramp.

Writing is a highly skilled and overlearned movement. In patients suffering from writer's cramp, a focal task-induced dystonia, writing is impaired or even impossible due to involuntary muscle contractions and abnormal posture, which occur as soon as the person picks up a pen or within writing a few words. The underlying pathophysiological mechanisms of this movement disorder are not fully understood up to now. The aim of the present study was to unravel the oscillatory network underlying physiological writing in healthy subjects and dystonic writing in writer's cramp patients. Using whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG) and the analysis tool dynamic imaging of coherent sources (DICS) we studied oscillatory neural coupling during writing in eleven healthy subjects and eight patients suffering from writer's cramp. Simultaneous recording of brain activity with MEG and activity of forearm and hand muscles with surface electromyography (EMG) was performed while subjects were writing for five minutes with their dominant right hand. Applying DICS sources of strongest cerebro-muscular coherence and cerebro-cerebral coherence during writing were identified, which consistently included six brain areas in both, the control subjects and the patients: contralateral and ipsilateral sensorimotor cortex, ipsilateral cerebellum, contralateral thalamus, contralateral premotor and posterior parietal cortex. Coherence between cortical sources and muscles appeared primarily in the frequency of writing movements (3-7 Hz) while coherence between cerebral sources occurred primarily around 10 Hz (8-13 Hz). Interestingly, consistent coupling between both sensorimotor cortices was observed in patients only, whereas coupling between ipsilateral cerebellum and the contralateral posterior parietal cortex was found in control subjects only. These results are consistent with the often described bilateral pathophysiology and impaired sensorimotor integration in writer's cramp patients.     

Motor cortex representation of the upper-limb in individuals born without a hand

The body schema is an action-related representation of the body that arises from activity in a network of multiple brain areas. While it was initially thought that the body schema developed with experience, the existence of phantom limbs in individuals born without a limb (amelics) led to the suggestion that it was innate. The problem with this idea, however, is that the vast majority of amelics do not report the presence of a phantom limb. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) applied over the primary motor cortex (M1) of traumatic amputees can evoke movement sensations in the phantom, suggesting that traumatic amputation does not delete movement representations of the missing hand. Given this, we asked whether the absence of a phantom limb in the majority of amelics means that the motor cortex does not contain a cortical representation of the missing limb, or whether it is present but has been deactivated by the lack of sensorimotor experience. In four upper-limb amelic subjects we directly stimulated the arm/hand region of M1 to see 1) whether we could evoke phantom sensations, and 2) whether muscle representations in the two cortices were organised asymmetrically. TMS applied over the motor cortex contralateral to the missing limb evoked contractions in stump muscles but did not evoke phantom movement sensations. The location and extent of muscle maps varied between hemispheres but did not reveal any systematic asymmetries. In contrast, forearm muscle thresholds were always higher for the missing limb side. We suggest that phantom movement sensations reported by some upper limb amelics are mostly driven by vision and not by the persistence of motor commands to the missing limb within the sensorimotor cortex. We propose that prewired movement representations of a limb need the experience of movement to be expressed within the primary motor cortex.     

Electrophysiological correlates of action observation treatment in children with cerebral palsy: A pilot study

Action Observation Treatment (AOT) has been shown to be effective in the functional recovery of several clinical populations. However, little is known about the neural underpinnings of the clinical efficacy of AOT in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP). Using electroencephalography (EEG), we recorded µ rhythm desynchronization as an index of sensorimotor cortex modulation during a passive action observation task before and after AOT. The relationship between sensorimotor modulation and clinical outcomes was also assessed. Eight children with CP entered the present randomized controlled crossover pilot study in which the experimental AOT preceded or followed a control Videogame Observation Treatment (VOT). Results provide further evidence of the clinical efficacy of AOT for improving hand motor function in CP, as assessed with the Assisting Hand Assessment (AHA) and Melbourne Assessment of Unilateral Upper Limb Function Scale (MUUL). The novel finding is that AOT increases µ rhythm desynchronization at scalp locations corresponding to the hand representation areas. This effect is associated to functional improvement assessed with the MUUL. These preliminary findings, although referred to as a small sample, suggest that AOT may affect upper limb motor recovery in children with CP and modulate the activation of sensorimotor areas, offering a potential neurophysiological correlate to support the clinical utility of AOT.     

Spectral-correlation characteristics of the electrical activity of the brain of the rabbit in a state of calm wakefulness

Inter- and intrahemispheric relations of electrical activity of the pre-motor, sensorimotor (representation of forelimb and blinking) and visual zones of rabbit's cerebral cortex in calm alertness was studied by method of spectral-correlative analysis. Mean coherence levels of the EEG of tested hemispheric symmetric points and symmetric pairs of leads in the left and right hemispheres were characterized by a high temporal stability in the state of calm alertness and during sensory stimulation. A comparison of mean coherence values of EEG in symmetric leads, revealed a tendency to left-side dominance of statistical bonds of electrical processes. A tendency was shown towards interhemispheric asymmetry by mean parameters of EEG power spectra: the left hemisphere of the rabbit is characterized by a lower mean frequency of electrical activity and a more narrow effective frequency of the spectrum.     

Enhancing Sensorimotor Activity by Controlling Virtual Objects with Gaze

This fMRI work studies brain activity of healthy volunteers who manipulated a virtual object in the context of a digital game by applying two different control methods: using their right hand or using their gaze. The results show extended activations in sensorimotor areas, not only when participants played in the traditional way (using their hand) but also when they used their gaze to control the virtual object. Furthermore, with the exception of the primary motor cortex, regional motor activity was similar regardless of what the effector was: the arm or the eye. These results have a potential application in the field of the neurorehabilitation as a new approach to generate activation of the sensorimotor system to support the recovery of the motor functions.     

Cerebral haemodynamics during motor imagery of self-feeding with chopsticks: differences between dominant and non-dominant hand

Abstract

Purpose: Motor imagery is defined as a dynamic state during which a subject mentally simulates a given action without overt movements. Our aim was to use near-infrared spectroscopy to investigate differences in cerebral haemodynamics during motor imagery of self-feeding with chopsticks using the dominant or non-dominant hand.

Materials and methods: Twenty healthy right-handed people participated in this study. The motor imagery task involved eating sliced cucumber pickles using chopsticks with the dominant (right) or non-dominant (left) hand. Activation of regions of interest (pre-supplementary motor area, supplementary motor area, pre-motor area, pre-frontal cortex, and sensorimotor cortex was assessed.

Results: Motor imagery vividness of the dominant hand tended to be significantly higher than that of the non-dominant hand. The time of peak oxygenated haemoglobin was significantly earlier in the right pre-frontal cortex than in the supplementary motor area and left pre-motor area. Haemodynamic correlations were detected in more regions of interest during dominant-hand motor imagery than during non-dominant-hand motor imagery.

Conclusions: Haemodynamics might be affected by differences in motor imagery vividness caused by variations in motor manipulation.