An output-null signature of inertial load in motor cortex

Eric A. Kirk, Keenan T. Hope, Samuel J. Sober and Britton A. Sauerbrei ()
Additional contact information
Eric A. Kirk: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Keenan T. Hope: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine
Samuel J. Sober: Emory University
Britton A. Sauerbrei: Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine

Nature Communications, 2024, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Abstract Coordinated movement requires the nervous system to continuously compensate for changes in mechanical load across different conditions. For voluntary movements like reaching, the motor cortex is a critical hub that generates commands to move the limbs and counteract loads. How does cortex contribute to load compensation when rhythmic movements are sequenced by a spinal pattern generator? Here, we address this question by manipulating the mass of the forelimb in unrestrained mice during locomotion. While load produces changes in motor output that are robust to inactivation of motor cortex, it also induces a profound shift in cortical dynamics. This shift is minimally affected by cerebellar perturbation and significantly larger than the load response in the spinal motoneuron population. This latent representation may enable motor cortex to generate appropriate commands when a voluntary movement must be integrated with an ongoing, spinally-generated rhythm.

Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51750-7 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:15:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-024-51750-7

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51750-7

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().