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@INPROCEEDINGS{Essink:1007028,
author = {Essink, Simon and Ito, Junji and Riehle, Alexa and
Brochier, Thomas and Grün, Sonja},
title = {{D}oes a bimodal distribution of preferred directions to
hand movements in visuo-parietal areas reflect a genuine
motor response?},
reportid = {FZJ-2023-01947},
year = {2022},
abstract = {Decades of intense research established that neurons in the
monkey motor cortex are tuned to handmovement direction with
a cosine-like function that can be characterized by a
preferred direction[1]. Although preferred directions were
assumed to be uniformly distributed at the population
level,more recent analyses showed that these preferred
directions are bimodally distributed if hand move-ments are
constrained to a horizontal work area [2,3]. In
electrophysiological recordings in macaquemonkeys via
multiple Utah electrode arrays during a visually guided
motor task that is constrainedto the horizontal plane [4],
we reproduced this result for the motor cortex and expand
the analysisto visual area V2 and parietal areas DP and
7A.Macaque monkeys had been trained to perform a visually
guided sequential reaching task while theirarm was in a
robotic exoskeleton system (KINARM Exoskeleton Laboratory,
BKIN Technologies).Both eye movements and hand movements
were recorded along with extracellular potentials from224
channels across visual (V1, V2), parietal (DP, 7a) and motor
(M1/PMd) areas. After spike sorting,we relate spiking
activity per single unit with the instantaneous hand
movement direction throughreverse correlation [5]. From
this, we extract the preferred hand movement direction by
fitting avon Mises tuning model [6]. The resulting
distributions of preferred directions per area were
testedfor bimodality using the Rayleigh r statistic.We
confirmed the bimodality of preferred directions of hand
movement-related responses (peaksat ~109 and ~309 degrees)
for neurons recorded in the motor cortex. Surprisingly, we
observedthe same tendencies in visual area V2 and in the
parietal areas DP and 7A and checked for thestatistical
significance of the results. Subsequently, we investigated
whether the observations in ourexperiment are a genuine
expression of the hand movement or rather arise in response
to the visualstimuli toward which the monkeys moved their
hands. The responses to hand movement directionsin area V2
can be explained by the receptive field locations of the
recorded neurons and the visualstimuli arising during the
task. In the parietal areas, however, we tend to exclude
visual stimuli asconfounding signals, hinting at the
presence of a genuine motor signal in parietal
areas.References:[1] Georgopoulos, A., Kalaska, J.,
Caminiti, R. $\&$ Massey, J. On the relations between the
directionof two-dimensional arm movements and cell discharge
in primate motor cortex. J. Neurosci. 2,1527–1537
(1982).[2] Scott, S. H., Gribble, P. L., Graham, K. M. $\&$
Cabel, D. W. Dissociation between hand motion andpopulation
vectors from neural activity in motor cortex. Nature 413,
161–165 (2001).[3] Lillicrap, T. P. $\&$ Scott, S. H.
Preference Distributions of Primary Motor Cortex Neurons
ReflectControl Solutions Optimized for Limb Biomechanics.
Neuron 77, 168–179 (2013).[4] de Haan, M. J., Brochier,
T., Grün, S., Riehle, A. $\&$ Barthélemy, F. V. Real-time
visuomotor be-havior and electrophysiology recording setup
for use with humans and monkeys. Journal of Neuro-physiology
120, 539–552 (2018).Page 136INM IBI Retreat 2022 / Book of
Abstracts[5] Eggermont, J. J., Johannesma, P. M. $\&$
Aertsen, A. M. Reverse-correlation methods in
auditoryresearch. Q Rev Biophys 16, 341–414 (1983).[6]
Amirikian, B. $\&$ Georgopulos, A. P. Directional tuning
profiles of motor cortical cells. Neuro-science Research 36,
73–79 (2000).},
month = {Oct},
date = {2022-10-18},
organization = {INM-IBI Retreat, Juelich (Germany), 18
Oct 2022 - 19 Oct 2022},
subtyp = {After Call},
cin = {INM-6 / IAS-6 / INM-10},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)INM-6-20090406 / I:(DE-Juel1)IAS-6-20130828 /
I:(DE-Juel1)INM-10-20170113},
pnm = {5232 - Computational Principles (POF4-523) / HBP SGA3 -
Human Brain Project Specific Grant Agreement 3 (945539)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5232 / G:(EU-Grant)945539},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)24},
doi = {10.34734/FZJ-2023-01947},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1007028},
}