Ng. Hatsopoulos et al., Information about movement direction obtained from synchronous activity ofmotor cortical neurons, P NAS US, 95(26), 1998, pp. 15706-15711
Citations number
29
Categorie Soggetti
Multidisciplinary
Journal title
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Although neuronal synchronization has been shown to exist in primary motor
cortex (MI), very little is known about its possible contribution to coding
of movement. By using cross-correlation techniques from multi-neuron recor
dings in MI, we observed that activity of neurons commonly synchronized aro
und the time of movement initiation. For some cell pairs, synchrony varied
with direction in a manner not readily predicted by the firing of either ne
uron. Information theoretic analysis demonstrated quantitatively that synch
rony provides information about movement direction beyond that expected by
simple rate changes. Thus, MI neurons are not simply independent encoders o
f movement parameters but rather engage in mutual interactions that could p
otentially provide an additional coding dimension in cortex.