Phase tuning properties of the Local Field Potentials during reach movements in the fronto-parietal areas PRR and PMd of rhesus monkey
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1
Deutsches Primatenzentrum, Germany
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2
Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Germany
The fronto-parietal reach network in primates comprises the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and the parietal reach region (PRR). The spiking activity of neurons in these areas is typically highly selective for the direction of a planned reach movement. For a large-enough population of motor-tuned neurons, the preferred movement direction (PD: direction of highest firing rate) of the individual neurons cover the full range of possible directions [1]. An important consequence of this heterogenity of the tuning properties is that any reach direction can be decoded from the population response equally well. This is a useful property for the design of neuroprosthetic devices, but long-term recording of isolated single neurons is challenging.
Local field potential (LFP), on the other hand, represent the activity of a wider range of tissue, and are less sensitive to small electrode displacements or glial tissue growth, making them a more stable and putatively attractive source of information for decoding systems. LFP signals in the fronto-parietal reach areas also have been shown to be spatially selective [2-5]. Yet, LFP-tuning based on signal power can show substantial similarities across channels, which reduces the information content of the population data significantly. In this study we aim to derive movement related information from LFPs, maximally independent from common information across channels, to alleviate this problem.
Two rhesus monkeys were trained to perform a memory-guided center-out reach task to four peripheral, visually instructed target positions while keeping central ocular fixation. LFP power and LFP phase between channels were computed for each time and frequency and analyzed in the movement planning phase following visual instruction. Our preliminary results indicate that not only LFP power, but also LFP relative phase exhibits directional tuning during movement planning. While tuning based on LFP amplitude shows highly similar PD values across channels, the relative LFP phase seems to provide more distinct PD values. This makes LFP phase a potentially highly interesting candidate to be included in decoding system for the design of neuroprosthetic devices.
References
[1] Gail A, et al (2006) Neural Dynamics in Monkey Parietal Reach Region Reflect Context-Specific Sensorimotor Transformations. J Neurosci 26: 9376-9384
[2] Markowitz DA, et al. (2011) Optimizing the decoding of movement goals from local field potentials in macaque cortex. J Neurosci. Dec 14;31(50):18412-22
[3] Scherberger H, et al. (2005) Cortical local field potential encodes movement intentions in the posterior parietal cortex. 21;46(2):347-54.
[4] Donoghue JP, et al. (1998) Neural discharge and local field potential oscillations in primate motor cortex during voluntary movements. JN Physiol . Vol. 79 no. 1 159-173
[5] Denker M, et al. (2007) Phase synchronization between LFP and spiking activity in motor cortex during movement. Neurocomp 70 2096–2101
Keywords:
Local Field Potentials,
Movement Goal,
phase,
Preferred Direction,
tuning
Conference:
Bernstein Conference 2012, Munich, Germany, 12 Sep - 14 Sep, 2012.
Presentation Type:
Poster
Topic:
Motor control, movement, navigation
Citation:
Martinez-Vazquez
P and
Gail
A
(2012). Phase tuning properties of the Local Field Potentials during reach movements in the fronto-parietal areas PRR and PMd of rhesus monkey.
Front. Comput. Neurosci.
Conference Abstract:
Bernstein Conference 2012.
doi: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2012.55.00206
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Received:
11 May 2012;
Published Online:
12 Sep 2012.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Alexander Gail, Deutsches Primatenzentrum, Goettingen, 37077, Germany, Alexander.Gail@mail.gwdg.de