Primate spinal interneurons show pre-movement instructed delay activity

Yifat Prut () and Eberhard E. Fetz
Additional contact information
Yifat Prut: Box 357330, University of Washington
Eberhard E. Fetz: Box 357330, University of Washington

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6753, 590-594

Abstract: Abstract Preparatory changes in neural activity before the execution of a movement have been documented in tasks that involve an instructed delay period (an interval between a transient instruction cue and a subsequently triggered movement). Such preparatory activity occurs in many motor centres in the brain, including the primary motor cortex1,2,3,4,5,6, premotor cortex7,8,9, supplementary motor area6,10,11 and basal ganglia6,12,13. Activity during the instructed delay period reflects movement planning, as it correlates with parameters of the cue and the subsequent movement (such as direction and extent5,6,9), although it occurs well before muscle activity. How such delay-period activity shapes the ensuing motor action remains unknown. Here we show that spinal interneurons also exhibit early pre-movement delay activity that often differs from their responses during the subsequent muscle activity. This delay activity resembles the set-related activity found in various supraspinal areas, indicating that movement preparation may occur simultaneously over widely distributed regions, including spinal levels. Our results also suggest that two processes occur in the spinal circuitry during this delay period: the motor network is primed with rate changes in the same direction as subsequent movement-related activity; and a superimposed global inhibition suppresses the expression of this activity in muscles.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/44145 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:401:y:1999:i:6753:d:10.1038_44145

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

DOI: 10.1038/44145

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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