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@INPROCEEDINGS{Essink:1017081,
author = {Essink, Simon and Ito, Junji and Riehle, Alexa and
Brochier, Thomas and Grün, Sonja},
title = {{B}imodal distribution of preferred directions to hand
movements in visuo-parietal areas},
reportid = {FZJ-2023-03923},
year = {2023},
abstract = {Decades of intense research established that neurons in
monkey motor cortex are tuned to hand movement direction
with a cosine-like function that can be characterized by a
preferred direction (PD) [1]. Although PDs across neurons
were assumed to be uniformly distributed, recent experiments
showed that PDs are bimodally distributed if hand movements
are constrained to a horizontal work area [2,3]. Several
modeling studies [4,5,6] attribute this biased distribution
to the limb biomechanics.In electrophysiological recordings
via multiple Utah electrode arrays along the dorsal visual
stream of macaque monkeys [7], we reproduce the biased
distribution of PDs in motor cortex and further elucidate if
such a bias extends to visual and parietal areas.Macaque
monkeys were trained to perform a visually guided sequential
reaching task using a robotic exoskeleton system (KINARM
Exoskeleton Laboratory, BKIN Technologies) that constrains
movements to the horizontal plane. Both eye and hand
movements were recorded along with extracellular potentials
from 224 channels across visual (V1/V2), parietal (DP, 7A)
and motor (M1/PMd) areas. After spike sorting, we relate
spiking activity of single units to the instantaneous hand
movement direction through Poisson Generalized Linear Models
(GLMs) [8], thus estimating the directional tuning curve and
the preferred direction of each unit. The resulting
distributions of PDs per area were tested for bimodality
using the Rayleigh r statistic.We confirm the bimodality (at
forward-left and backwards-right directions) of the
distribution of PDs for neurons in the motor cortex.
Interestingly, we observe the same tendencies in all visual
and parietal areas and find statistical significance of the
results.We then investigate whether our observations are a
genuine expression of the hand movement or rather arise in
response to co-occurring sensory and/or behavioral events
(e.g. appearance of visual stimuli toward which the monkeys
moved their hands). To exclude such confounds, we chose to
fit more complex GLMs to the neural activity that account
for the impact of various modalities (visual input, eye/hand
position, saccade, and hand movement) on the activity. Even
after such a control, we observe significant bimodal
distributions of PDs in V1/V2, DP and 7A being attributed
only to the hand movement regressors, suggesting an
influence of limb biomechanics even in the lower hierarchies
of the dorsal visual stream.References [1] Georgopoulos, A.,
Kalaska, J., Caminiti, R. $\&$ Massey, J. On the relations
between the direction of two-dimensional arm movements and
cell discharge in primate motor cortex. J. Neurosci. 2,
1527–1537 (1982)., 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.02-11-01527.1982 [2]
Scott, S. H., Gribble, P. L., Graham, K. M. $\&$ Cabel, D.
W. Dissociation between hand motion and population vectors
from neural activity in motor cortex. Nature 413, 161–165
(2001)., 10.1038/35093102 [3] Suminski, A. J., Mardoum, P.,
Lillicrap, T. P. $\&$ Hatsopoulos, N. G. Temporal evolution
of both premotor and motor cortical tuning properties
reflect changes in limb biomechanics. Journal of
Neurophysiology 113, 2812–2823 (2015).,
10.1152/jn.00486.2014 [4] Lillicrap, T. P. $\&$ Scott, S. H.
Preference Distributions of Primary Motor Cortex Neurons
Reflect Control Solutions Optimized for Limb Biomechanics.
Neuron 77, 168–179 (2013)., 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.10.041
[5] Verduzco-Flores, S. O. $\&$ De Schutter, E.
Self-configuring feedback loops for sensorimotor control.
eLife 11, e77216 (2022)., 10.7554/eLife.77216 [6] Codol, O.,
Michaels, J. A., Kashefi, M., Pruszynski, J. A. $\&$
Gribble, P. L. MotorNet: a Python toolbox for controlling
differentiable biomechanical effectors with artificial
neural networks. bioarxiv (2023), 10.1101/2023.02.17.528969
[7] de Haan, M. J., Brochier, T., Grün, S., Riehle, A. $\&$
Barthélemy, F. V. Real-time visuomotor behavior and
electrophysiology recording setup for use with humans and
monkeys. Journal of Neurophysiology 120, 539–552 (2018).,
10.1152/jn.00262.2017 [8] McCullagh, P. $\&$ Nelder, J. A.
Generalized Linear Models. (Springer US, 1989).,
10.1007/978-1-4899-3242-6},
month = {Sep},
date = {2023-09-26},
organization = {Bernstein Conference 2023, Berlin
(Germany), 26 Sep 2023 - 29 Sep 2023},
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 = {5231 - Neuroscientific Foundations (POF4-523) / 5235 -
Digitization of Neuroscience and User-Community Building
(POF4-523) / GRK 2416 - GRK 2416: MultiSenses-MultiScales:
Neue Ansätze zur Aufklärung neuronaler multisensorischer
Integration (368482240) / HBP SGA2 - Human Brain Project
Specific Grant Agreement 2 (785907) / HBP SGA3 - Human Brain
Project Specific Grant Agreement 3 (945539)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5231 / G:(DE-HGF)POF4-5235 /
G:(GEPRIS)368482240 / G:(EU-Grant)785907 /
G:(EU-Grant)945539},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)24},
doi = {10.34734/FZJ-2023-03923},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/1017081},
}