On the relation between brain potentials and the awareness of voluntary movements

We investigated the relation between neural events and the perceived time o f voluntary actions or the perceived time of initiating those actions using the method of Libet. No differences were found in either movement-related potentials or perceived time of motor events between a fixed movement condi tion, where subjects made voluntary movements of a single finger in each bl ock, and a free movement condition, in which subjects chose whether to resp ond with the left or the right index finger on each trial. We next calculat ed both the readiness potential (RP) and lateralised readiness potential (L RP) for trials with early and late times of awareness. The RP tended to occ ur later on trials with early awareness of movement initiation than on tria ls with late awareness, ruling out the RP as a cause of our awareness of mo vement intiation. However, the LRP occurred significantly earlier on trials with early awareness than on trials with late awareness, suggesting that t he processes underlying the LRP may cause our awareness of movement initiat ion.