Abstract
Coherent β-oscillations are a dominant feature of the sensorimotor system yet their function remains enigmatic. We propose that, in addition to cell intrinsic and/or local network interactions, they are supported by activity propagating recurrently around closed neural 'loops' between primary motor cortex (M1), muscles, and back to M1 via somatosensory pathways. Individual loops reciprocally connect individual muscle synergies ('motor primitives') with their representations in M1, and the conduction time around each loop resonates with the periodic spiking of its constituent neurons/muscles. During β-oscillations, this resonance strengthens within-loop connectivity (via long-term potentiation, LTP), whereas non-resonance between different loops weakens connectivity (via long-term depression, LTD) between M1 representations of different muscle synergies. In this way, β-oscillations help maintain accurate and discrete representations of muscle synergies in M1.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 77-85 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Trends in Neurosciences |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1 Feb 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We acknowledge the support of Professor Eberhard Fetz, in whose laboratory research was carried out leading to the genesis of these ideas. The preparation of this manuscript was supported by an Australia Israel Research Exchange (AIRE) fellowship established by the Israeli Ministry of Technology and Science and the Australian Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, and by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (Project grant #1022839). The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health acknowledges support from the Victorian Government's Operational Infrastructure Support Grant.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2014 Elsevier Ltd.
Keywords
- Motor control
- Motor maps
- Motor system
- Neural loops