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Direction of action is represented in the ventral premotor cortex

Nature Neuroscience volume 4, pages 1020–1025 (2001)Cite this article

Abstract

The ventral premotor area (PMv) is a major source of input to the primary motor cortex (M1). To examine the potential hierarchical processing between these motor areas, we recorded the activity of PMv neurons in a monkey trained to perform wrist movements in different directions with the wrist in three different postures. The task dissociated three major variables of wrist movement: muscle activity, direction of joint movement and direction of movement in space. Many PMv neurons were directionally tuned. Nearly all of these neurons (61/65, 94%) were 'extrinsic-like'; they seemed to encode the direction of movement in space independent of forearm posture. These results are strikingly different from results from M1 of the same animal, and suggest that intracortical processing between PMv and M1 may contribute to a sensorimotor transformation between extrinsic and intrinsic coordinate frames.

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Figure 1: Directionally tuned activity of three neurons in the PMv.
Figure 2: Spatiotemporal maps of extrinsic-like activity in the PMv.
Figure 3: Distribution of neuron types in the PMv and M1.
Figure 4: Preferred directions of neurons and forearm muscles.
Figure 5: Extrinsic-like neurons in the PMv.
Figure 6: Timing contrast between extrinsic-like neurons in the PMv and M1.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A.P. Georgopoulos, J.F. Kalaska, S.I. Helms-Tillery and L.E. Sergio for help with the statistical analysis. We thank E. Stappenbeck for care and training of the animal, K. Hughes and M. O'Malley-Davis for technical assistance, and M. Page and W. Hartz for computer program development. This work was supported by funds from the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medical Research Service and Rehabilitation Research and Development Service (P. L. Strick).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Service, Veterans Affairs Medical Center, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, W1640 Biomedical Science Tower, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, Pennsylvania, USA

    Shinji Kakei, Donna S. Hoffman & Peter L. Strick

  2. Department of Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, W1640 Biomedical Science Tower, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, Pennsylvania, USA

    Shinji Kakei, Donna S. Hoffman & Peter L. Strick

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, W1640 Biomedical Science Tower, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, Pennsylvania, USA

    Peter L. Strick

  4. Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, W1640 Biomedical Science Tower, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, 15261, Pennsylvania, USA

    Shinji Kakei, Donna S. Hoffman & Peter L. Strick

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  1. Shinji Kakei
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Correspondence to Peter L. Strick.

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Kakei, S., Hoffman, D. & Strick, P. Direction of action is represented in the ventral premotor cortex. Nat Neurosci 4, 1020–1025 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn726

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