Rapid Automatic Motor Encoding of Competing Reach Options

Publication date: 14 February 2017
Source:Cell Reports, Volume 18, Issue 7
Author(s): Jason P. Gallivan, Brandie M. Stewart, Lee A. Baugh, Daniel M. Wolpert, J. Randall Flanagan
Mounting neural evidence suggests that, in situations in which there are multiple potential targets for action, the brain prepares, in parallel, competing movements associated with these targets, prior to implementing one of them. Central to this interpretation is the idea that competing viewed targets, prior to selection, are rapidly and automatically transformed into corresponding motor representations. Here, by applying target-specific, gradual visuomotor rotations and dissociating, unbeknownst to participants, the visual direction of potential targets from the direction of the movements required to reach the same targets, we provide direct evidence for this provocative idea. Our results offer strong empirical support for theories suggesting that competing action options are automatically represented in terms of the movements required to attain them. The rapid motor encoding of potential targets may support the fast optimization of motor costs under conditions of target uncertainty and allow the motor system to inform decisions about target selection.

Graphical abstract

Teaser

Gallivan et al. show, by dissociating the visual direction of potential targets from the movement directions required to reach them, that reaches under target uncertainty reflect an average of corresponding movement, and not visual, directions. This suggests that competing action options are directly mapped onto corresponding motor representations in cortex.


http://ift.tt/2kRTmgW