Article
Neurosciences
Eun Jung Hwang, Jeffrey E. Dahlen, Madan Mukundan, Takaki Komiyama
Summary: It has been found that the dependence on the motor cortex during long-term learning is not fixed, but can dynamically change. Movements that achieve higher consistency are less dependent on the motor cortex, and superior motor performance can affect neural circuit reorganization.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Cell Biology
Chun-Lei Zhang, Fani Koukouli, Manuela Allegra, Cantin Ortiz, Hsin-Lun Kao, Uwe Maskos, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Christoph Schmidt-Hieber
Summary: Before spontaneous movement, MOs neurons exhibit slowly increasing membrane potential and spike ramps, which become stronger and faster after goal-directed training, indicating that the interplay between internal rhythm interneurons and principal neuron recurrent connectivity shapes ramping signals. Excitatory synapse plasticity on SOM+ inhibitory neurons can explain the acceleration of ramps after training.
Article
Neurosciences
Lex J. Gomez, James C. Dooley, Greta Sokoloff, Mark S. Blumberg
Summary: The study suggests that the primary motor cortex (M1) can receive sensory input directly from the thalamus independent of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) at early developmental stages. The processing of self-generated and other-generated movements varies between S1 and M1 before they establish the interactive relationship typical of adult functionality.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Abdulraheem Nashef, Rea Mitelman, Ran Harel, Mati Joshua, Yifat Prut
Summary: Our study on correlated firing between motor thalamic and cortical cells in monkeys performing a delayed-response reaching task revealed positive and negative correlations between thalamic cells and primary motor cortex activity, as well as premotor cortex activity around movement onset. This functional cooperation and opposition between the motor thalamus and distinct motor cortical areas with specific roles in planning vs. performing movements suggests that the motor thalamus can facilitate the transition from a motor plan to execution by enhancing and suppressing motor and premotor firing.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Tao Wang, Yusheng Zhang, Weiwu Chen, Jin Tao, Qiao Xue, Wei Ge, Wanchen Dou, Chao Ma
Summary: This study utilized a high throughput quantitative proteomic approach to evaluate proteomic changes in the hippocampus and motor cortex in a rat model of cerebral palsy (CP) induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) combined with hypoxia/ischemia (H/I). The research revealed that neuroinflammatory responses in the brain induced by the CP model could be reversed by the topical application of Baimai ointment. Furthermore, the application of Baimai ointment not only alleviated motor deficits in CP model rats, but also restored the proteomes in the brain cortex.
BIOMEDICINE & PHARMACOTHERAPY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Florian Krach, Judith Stemick, Tom Boerstler, Alexander Weiss, Ioannis Lingos, Stephanie Reischl, Holger Meixner, Sonja Ploetz, Michaela Farrell, Ute Hehr, Zacharias Kohl, Beate Winner, Juergen Winkler
Summary: This study investigates the molecular mechanism of Branaplam, a modulator of alternative splicing, in Huntington's disease. The drug effectively lowers mutant HTT protein levels and improves alternative splicing pathology in patient-derived cellular models. These findings demonstrate the potential of splicing modulators in treating CAG repeat disorders.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Cell Biology
Vibhu Sahni, Yasuhiro Itoh, Sara J. Shnider, Jeffrey D. Macklis
Summary: This study identified molecular controls, such as Crim1 and Klhl14, that play critical roles in directing corticospinal axons to specific spinal segmental levels. These findings provide insights into the regulatory mechanisms of descending spinal projections and contribute to a better understanding of diverse circuitry in the central nervous system.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Jingwen Li, Patrick A. Kells, Ayla C. Osgood, Shree Hari Gautam, Woodrow L. Shew
Summary: The complex dynamics and coordination among neurons in the motor cortex are important for complex body movements. Excessive inhibition can lead to excessive synchrony among movement-related neurons, resulting in a collapse of complexity in the motor system and simpler behavior. This imbalance of inhibition may underlie abnormal motor function in conditions like Rett syndrome.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2021)
Article
Neurosciences
Artur Schneider, Christian Zimmermann, Mansour Alyahyay, Florian Steenbergen, Thomas Brox, Ilka Diester
Summary: This study presents a versatile framework for capturing the 3D motion of freely definable body points and reveals multiplexing of information in the motor cortex neurons of freely moving rats. The framework allows for analysis of specific behaviors of interest by removing the influence of certain body movements.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Luca Tonin, Serafeim Perdikis, Taylan Deniz Kuzu, Jorge Pardo, Bastien Orset, Kyuhwa Lee, Mirko Aach, Thomas Armin Schildhauer, Ramon Martinez-Olivera, Jose del R. Millan
Summary: The study shows that tetraplegic spinal-cord injury users can be trained to operate a non-invasive thought-controlled wheelchair for complex navigation tasks, but only those with increasing decoding performance and feature discriminancy achieved high navigation performance. Additionally, dexterous control of robots is possible through shared-control methodologies.
Article
Neurosciences
Kozue Takada, Takuya Yamaguchi, Yuko Hyuga, Yuto Mitsuno, Satoshi Horiguchi, Masako Kinoshita, Takeshi Satow
Summary: This study evaluated the clinical features of bimanual movement impairment in a patient following surgery for a frontal lobe tumor. The results showed that resection of the frontal lobe can cause transient impairment of in-phase bimanual movement, and auditory cueing can improve bimanual movement performance.
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Neurosciences
Dane Donegan, Christoph M. Kanzler, Julia Buescher, Paulius Viskaitis, Ed F. Bracey, Olivier Lambercy, Denis Burdakov
Summary: Skilled arm movements require adaptation based on sensory errors, and studies in mice show that forelimb motor adaptation is regulated by the hypothalamic orexin/hypocretin neurons (HONs). By studying goal-oriented mouse-robot interactions, distinct HON signals were found during forelimb movements and motor adaptation. Temporally-delimited optosilencing of these movement-associated HON signals impaired sensory error-based motor adaptation.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Karen E. Schroeder, Sean M. Perkins, Qi Wang, Mark M. Churchland
Summary: Recent scientific findings suggest that different movement classes may require different decoding strategies, and leveraging high-variance multidimensional subspace can improve performance.
JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Salem Mansour, Joshua Giles, Kai Keng Ang, Krishnan P. S. Nair, Kok Soon Phua, Mahnaz Arvaneh
Summary: This study investigates the effectiveness of BCI in detecting motor imagery from the contralesional hemisphere in stroke patients. The results show that both the contralesional and ipsilesional hemisphere can be used to operate the BCI, and stroke patients with higher motor impairments tend to have lower ipsilesional BCI accuracy and higher contralesional BCI accuracy.
SCIENTIFIC REPORTS
(2022)
Review
Neurosciences
Danny Adrian Spampinato, Jaime Ibanez, Lorenzo Rocchi, John Rothwell
Summary: Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive technique used to study the human brain. One outcome measure of TMS is the motor-evoked potential (MEP), which estimates changes in corticospinal excitability. This article summarizes the neural pathways and circuits contributing to MEP generation, discusses factors to consider when interpreting MEP amplitude in motor processing and neurological conditions, and explores how emerging technologies can enhance understanding of neural substrates influencing MEPs.
JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY-LONDON
(2023)