Predicting grip force amplitude involves circuits in the anterior basal ganglia.

The ability to grip objects allows us to perform many activities of daily living such as eating and drinking. Lesions to and disorders of the basal ganglia can cause deficits in grip force control. Although the prediction of grip force amplitude is an important component of performing a grip force task, the extant literature suggests that this process may not include the basal ganglia. This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore the functional brain mechanisms underlying the prediction of grip force amplitude. The mean force and duration of force did not vary across prediction levels. As anticipated, the reaction time decreased with the level of grip force predictions. In confirmation of previous studies, the parieto-frontal and cerebellar circuits increased their fMRI signal as grip force predictability increased. In addition, the novel finding was that anterior nuclei in the basal ganglia such as caudate and anterior putamen also had an fMRI signal that increased with the level of grip force prediction. In contrast, the fMRI signal in posterior nuclei of the basal ganglia did not change with the level of prediction. These findings provide new evidence indicating that anterior basal ganglia nuclei are involved in the predictive scaling of precision grip force control. Further, the results provide additional support for the planning and parameterization model of the basal ganglia by demonstrating that specific anterior nuclei of the basal ganglia are involved in planning grip force.

Effects of visual and auditory feedback on sensorimotor circuits in the basal ganglia.

Previous work using visual feedback has identified two distinct sensorimotor circuits in the basal ganglia (BG): one that scaled with the duration of force and one that scaled with the rate of change of force. The present study compared functional MRI signal changes in the BG during a grip force task using either visual or auditory feedback to determine whether the BG nuclei process auditory and visual feedback similarly. We confirmed the same two sensorimotor circuits in the BG. Activation in the striatum and external globus pallidus (GPe) scaled linearly with the duration of force under visual and auditory feedback conditions, with similar slopes and intercepts across feedback type. The pattern of signal change for the internal globus pallidus (GPi) and subthalamic nucleus (STN) was nonlinear and parameters of the exponential function were altered by feedback type. Specifically, GPi and STN activation decreased exponentially with the rate of change of force. The rate constant and asymptote of the exponential functions for GPi and STN were greater during auditory than visual feedback. In a comparison of the BOLD signal between BG regions, GPe had the highest percentage of variance accounted for and this effect was preserved for both feedback types. These new findings suggest that neuronal activity of specific BG nuclei is affected by whether the feedback is derived from visual or auditory inputs. Also, the data are consistent with the hypothesis that the GPe has a high level of information convergence from other BG nuclei, which is preserved across different sensory feedback modalities.