Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, German Primate Center - Leibniz-Institute for Primate Research, Goettingen, Germany.
Faculty of Biology and Psychology, University of Goettingen, Goettingen, Germany.
Elife. 2020 May 4;9:e51322. doi: 10.7554/eLife.51322.
System neuroscience of motor cognition regarding the space beyond immediate reach mandates free, yet experimentally controlled movements. We present an experimental environment (Reach Cage) and a versatile visuo-haptic interaction system () for investigating goal-directed whole-body movements of unrestrained monkeys. Two rhesus monkeys conducted instructed walk-and-reach movements towards targets flexibly positioned in the cage. We tracked 3D multi-joint arm and head movements using markerless motion capture. Movements show small trial-to-trial variability despite being unrestrained. We wirelessly recorded 192 broad-band neural signals from three cortical sensorimotor areas simultaneously. Single unit activity is selective for different reach and walk-and-reach movements. Walk-and-reach targets could be decoded from premotor and parietal but not motor cortical activity during movement planning. The Reach Cage allows systems-level sensorimotor neuroscience studies with full-body movements in a configurable 3D spatial setting with unrestrained monkeys. We conclude that the primate frontoparietal network encodes reach goals beyond immediate reach during movement planning.
关于超越即时触及范围的运动认知的系统神经科学需要自由的、但可实验控制的运动。我们提出了一种实验环境（Reach Cage）和一种多功能的视触觉交互系统（），用于研究无约束猴子的目标导向全身运动。两只恒河猴进行了灵活定位在笼子里的目标的指令行走和伸展运动。我们使用无标记运动捕捉跟踪 3D 多关节手臂和头部运动。尽管没有受到限制，但运动表现出较小的试验间变异性。我们无线记录了来自三个皮质感觉运动区域的 192 个宽带神经信号。单个单元活动对不同的伸展和行走伸展运动具有选择性。在运动规划期间，可以从运动前和顶叶而不是运动皮质活动中解码行走伸展目标。Reach Cage 允许在可配置的 3D 空间设置中使用无约束猴子进行全身运动的系统水平感觉运动神经科学研究。我们得出结论，灵长类动物的额顶网络在运动规划期间对超越即时触及范围的伸展目标进行编码。
