Pre-movement changes in sensorimotor beta oscillations predict motor adaptation drive

Darch, Henry; Cerminara, Nadia L.; Gilchrist, Iain D.; Apps, Richard · 2020 · OpenAlex-citations

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-74833-z

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Summary

This study investigates whether pre-movement changes in sensorimotor beta oscillations reflect the neural drive for motor adaptation. While beta frequency oscillations (13–30 Hz) in the motor cortex are known to decrease during movement preparation and execution, their specific role in adapting to environmental perturbations remains debated. Previous research suggested that attenuated pre-movement beta might signal an "adaptive drive"—neuronal activity generated in response to behavioral errors to modify subsequent actions—or merely reflect higher-level sensory processing. To clarify this, the authors examined whether beta reductions correlate with adaptive drive rather than movement kinematics, and whether these effects generalize across species. The researchers employed a dual-species experimental design. Eleven healthy humans performed a joystick visuomotor adaptation task involving a 35° clockwise rotation of visual feedback. Scalp electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded over the motor cortex, focusing on the beta band (15–25 Hz) during the pre-movement preparatory phase. Concurrently, local field potential (LFP) activity was recorded directly from the primary motor cortex of three cats performing a prism-induced visuomotor adaptation task. This approach allowed for a comparison between non-invasive human EEG and invasive animal LFP data, isolating pre-movement neural activity from movement execution confounds. Data were analyzed using time-frequency decomposition, with statistical models controlling for reaction time and reach duration. The results demonstrated that beta power was significantly reduced during early adaptation trials in both humans and cats compared to baseline, late adaptation, or aftereffect periods. In humans, this reduction occurred when endpoint errors were largest and the rate of adaptation was greatest. Crucially, these beta changes were not related to the magnitude of endpoint errors, nor were they explained by variations in reaction time or reach duration, even though beta power did correlate with these kinematic measures in isolation. The effect was specific to the adaptation phase; similar beta reductions were not observed during the early aftereffect phase, despite the presence of targeting errors. These findings support the hypothesis that pre-movement beta desynchronization in the motor cortex predicts an increase in adaptive drive. The consistency of results across human EEG and cat LFP recordings suggests that this neural mechanism is conserved across species. By dissociating beta changes from movement kinematics and error magnitude, the study indicates that reduced beta activity specifically signals the brain's preparation to update motor commands in response to environmental perturbations, rather than merely reflecting sensory processing or movement timing. This provides insight into the complementary roles of the motor cortex and cerebellum in motor learning, highlighting the cortex's involvement in integrating new dynamics into motor programs.

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