Interhemispheric interactions between the right angular gyrus and the left motor cortex: a transcranial magnetic stimulation study.

The interconnection of the angular gyrus of right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) and the left motor cortex (LM1) is essential for goal-directed hand movements. Previous work with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) showed that right PPC stimulation increases LM1 excitability, but right PPC followed by left PPC-LM1 stimulation (LPPC-LM1) inhibits LM1 corticospinal output compared with LPPC-LM1 alone. It is not clear if right PPC-mediated inhibition of LPPC-LM1 is due to inhibition of left PPC or to combined effects of right and left PPC stimulation on LM1 excitability. We used paired-pulse TMS to study the extent to which combined right and left PPC stimulation, targeting the angular gyri, influences LM1 excitability. We tested 16 healthy subjects in five paired-pulsed TMS experiments using MRI-guided neuronavigation to target the angular gyri within PPC. We tested the effects of different right angular gyrus (RAG) and LM1 stimulation intensities on the influence of RAG on LM1 and on influence of left angular gyrus (LAG) on LM1 (LAG-LM1). We then tested the effects of RAG and LAG stimulation on LM1 short-interval intracortical facilitation (SICF), short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI), and long-interval intracortical inhibition (LICI). The results revealed that RAG facilitated LM1, inhibited SICF, and inhibited LAG-LM1. Combined RAG-LAG stimulation did not affect SICI but increased LICI. These experiments suggest that RAG-mediated inhibition of LAG-LM1 is related to inhibition of early indirect (I)-wave activity and enhancement of GABAB receptor-mediated inhibition in LM1. The influence of RAG on LM1 likely involves ipsilateral connections from LAG to LM1 and heterotopic connections from RAG to LM1.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Goal-directed hand movements rely on the right and left angular gyri (RAG and LAG) and motor cortex (M1), yet how these brain areas functionally interact is unclear. Here, we show that RAG stimulation facilitated right hand motor output from the left M1 but inhibited indirect (I)-waves in M1. Combined RAG and LAG stimulation increased GABAB, but not GABAA, receptor-mediated inhibition in left M1. These findings highlight unique brain interactions between the RAG and left M1.

Learning from Goal and Action Based Observations Differentially Modulates Functional Motor Cortical Plasticity.

Action observation can facilitate motor skill learning and lead to a memory trace in motor representations of action. However, it remains unclear whether the action itself or the goal of the action drive changes in motor representations after learning by observation. We performed two experiments. In Experiment 1, using serial reaction time task and transcranial magnetic stimulation, we showed that observation of right-hand actions during skill learning only increased left motor cortical excitability, leading to behavioral gains in the same hand as the observed hand. In contrast, observing a sequence of visual cue positions devoid of hand action increases motor cortical excitability in both hemispheres and facilitates motor skill learning in the right hand (Experiment 1) and left hand for a mirror-symmetric sequence (Experiment 2). We propose that the encoding of observed movements maps onto motor representations of the same action to form a limb-specific motor memory, whereas the learning of spatial goals forms memory traces in the motor representations in both hemispheres to prepare for potential action in either hand.

Rubber hand illusion modulates the influences of somatosensory and parietal inputs to the motor cortex.

The rubber hand illusion (RHI) paradigm experimentally produces an illusion of rubber hand ownership and arm shift by simultaneously stroking a rubber hand in view and a participant's visually occluded hand. It involves visual, tactile, and proprioceptive multisensory integration and activates multisensory areas in the brain, including the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Multisensory inputs are transformed into outputs for motor control in association areas such as PPC. A behavioral study reported decreased motor performance after RHI. However, it remains unclear whether RHI modifies the interactions between sensory and motor systems and between PPC and the primary motor cortex (M1). We used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and examined the functional connections from the primary somatosensory and association cortices to M1 and from PPC to M1 during RHI. In experiment 1, short-latency afferent inhibition (SAI) and long-latency afferent inhibition (LAI) were measured before and immediately after a synchronous (RHI) or an asynchronous (control) condition. In experiment 2, PPC-M1 interaction was measured using two coils. We found that SAI and LAI were reduced in the synchronous condition compared with baseline, suggesting that RHI decreased somatosensory processing in the primary sensory and the association cortices projecting to M1. We also found that greater inhibitory PPC-M1 interaction was associated with stronger RHI assessed by questionnaire. Our findings suggest that RHI modulates both the early and late stages of processing of tactile afferent, which leads to altered M1 excitability by reducing the gain of somatosensory afferents to resolve conflicts among multisensory inputs. NEW & NOTEWORTHY Perception of one's own body parts involves integrating different sensory information and is important for motor control. We found decreased effects of cutaneous stimulation on motor cortical excitability during rubber hand illusion (RHI), which may reflect decreased gain of tactile input to resolve multisensory conflicts. RHI strength correlated with the degree of inhibitory posterior parietal cortex-motor cortex interaction, indicating that parietal-motor connection is involved in resolving sensory conflicts and body ownership during RHI.

Functional interaction between human dorsal premotor cortex and the ipsilateral primary motor cortex for grasp plans: a dual-site TMS study.

Recent findings suggest that the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), a cortical area in the dorsomedial pathway, is involved in grasp control. It is unclear, however, whether human PMd transfers grasp-related information to the primary motor cortex hand area (M1HAND) during action preparation. The present study tested whether ipsilateral cortico-cortical connections between PMd and M1HAND in the left hemisphere are modulated during grasp preparation. Ten participants performed object-directed grasps and reaches with the right hand. Functional connectivity between left PMd and ipsilateral M1HAND was probed with dual-site transcranial magnetic stimulation. We found that PMd-M1HAND functional interactions were facilitated selectively for the muscles involved in the preparation of the upcoming grasps. The PMd-M1HAND interaction was facilitated for first dorsal interosseous muscle for both precision grip and whole-hand grasps and for abductor digiti minimi muscle for whole-hand grasps. We conclude that human dorsomedial PMd-M1HAND circuit encodes handgrip formation during grasp preparation.

Increases in motor cortical excitability during mirror visual feedback of a precision grasp is influenced by vision and movement of the opposite limb.

Unimanual grasp movements with mirrored visual feedback (MVF) can improve function and increase excitability of primary motor cortex (M1) ipsilateral to the moving hand. However, no study to date has examined the contribution of vision and movement of the opposite hand during an object-directed precision grasp. In this study, we tested 15 healthy individuals in three conditions: MVF (vision + motor), Movement (motor component), and Action Observation (vision component). We hypothesized that unimanual grasp movements with MVF increases the excitability and reduces intracortical inhibition of the M1 ipsilateral to the moving hand. We found increased excitability in the right primary motor cortex (M1) ipsilateral to the moving right hand for MVF movements compared to Rest (Baseline). In contrast, no change was found in right M1 with only movement of the right hand or observation of object-directed precision grasp with left hand. We also found a reduction in short-interval intracortical inhibition in MVF movements compared to baseline. These findings suggest that excitability in M1 during an object-directed precision grasp is mediated by the combination of viewing the movement performed and performing the movement from the opposite hand.

Human dorsomedial parieto-motor circuit specifies grasp during the planning of goal-directed hand actions.

According to one influential view, two specialized parieto-frontal circuits control prehension: a dorsomedial stream for hand transport during reaching and a dorsolateral stream for preshaping the fingers during grasping. However, recent evidence argues that an area within the dorsomedial stream-macaque area V6A and, its putative human homolog, superior parietal occipital cortex (SPOC) - encodes both hand transport and grip formation. We tested whether planning varied hand actions modulates functional connectivity between left SPOC and ipsilateral primary motor cortex (M1) using a dual-site, paired-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation paradigm with two coils (dsTMS). Participants performed three different hand actions to a target object comprising a small cylinder atop a larger cylinder. These actions were: reaching-to-grasp the top (GT) using a precision grip, reaching-to-grasp the bottom (GB) using a whole-hand grip, or reaching-to-touch (Touch) the side of the target object without forming a grip. Motor-evoked potentials (MEPs) from TMS to M1, with or without preceding TMS to SPOC, were recorded from first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and abductor digiti minimi (ADM) hand muscles in two experiments that varied timing parameters (the stimulus onset asynchrony, SOA, between the 'GO' cue and stimulation and interpulse interval, IPI, between SPOC and M1 stimulation). We found that preparatory response amplitudes in the SPOC-M1 circuit of different hand muscles were selectively modulated early in the motor plan for different types of grasps. First, based on SPOC-M1 interactions, across two experiments, the role of the ADM was facilitated during a whole-hand grasp of a large object (GB) relative to other conditions under certain timing parameters (SOA = 150 msec; IPI = 6 msec). Second, the role of the FDI was facilitated during hand action planning compared to rest. These findings suggest that the human dorsomedial parieto-motor stream plays a causal role in planning grip formation for object-directed actions.