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Li Y, An X, Qian Y, Xu XH, Zhao S, Mohan H, Bachschmid-Romano L, Brunel N, Whishaw IQ, Huang ZJ. Cortical network and projection neuron types that articulate serial order in a skilled motor behavior. bioRxiv 2023:2023.10.25.563871. [PMID: 37961483 PMCID: PMC10634836 DOI: 10.1101/2023.10.25.563871] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/15/2023]
Abstract
Skilled motor behaviors require orderly coordination of multiple constituent movements with sensory cues towards achieving a goal, but the underlying brain circuit mechanisms remain unclear. Here we show that target-guided reach-grasp-to-drink (RGD) in mice involves the ordering and coordination of a set of forelimb and oral actions. Cortex-wide activity imaging of multiple glutamatergic projection neuron (PN) types uncovered a network, involving the secondary motor cortex (MOs), forelimb primary motor and somatosensory cortex, that tracked RGD movements. Photo-inhibition highlighted MOs in coordinating RGD movements. Within the MOs, population neural trajectories tracked RGD progression and single neuron activities integrated across constituent movements. Notably, MOs intratelencephalic, pyramidal tract, and corticothalamic PN activities correlated with action coordination, showed distinct neural dynamics trajectories, and differentially contributed to movement coordination. Our results delineate a cortical network and key areas, PN types, and neural dynamics therein that articulate the serial order and coordination of a skilled behavior.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yi Li
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 1 1724, USA
| | - Xu An
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 1 1724, USA
| | - Yongjun Qian
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 1 1724, USA
| | - X. Hermione Xu
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Shengli Zhao
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Hemanth Mohan
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 1 1724, USA
| | | | - Nicolas Brunel
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
| | - Ian Q. Whishaw
- Department of Neuroscience, Canadian Centre for Behavioural Research, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, TIK 3M4, Canada
| | - Z. Josh Huang
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
- Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 1 1724, USA
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC 27710, USA
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Bachschmid-Romano L, Hatsopoulos NG, Brunel N. Interplay between external inputs and recurrent dynamics during movement preparation and execution in a network model of motor cortex. eLife 2023; 12:77690. [PMID: 37166452 PMCID: PMC10174693 DOI: 10.7554/elife.77690] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/08/2022] [Accepted: 03/09/2023] [Indexed: 05/12/2023] Open
Abstract
The primary motor cortex has been shown to coordinate movement preparation and execution through computations in approximately orthogonal subspaces. The underlying network mechanisms, and the roles played by external and recurrent connectivity, are central open questions that need to be answered to understand the neural substrates of motor control. We develop a recurrent neural network model that recapitulates the temporal evolution of neuronal activity recorded from the primary motor cortex of a macaque monkey during an instructed delayed-reach task. In particular, it reproduces the observed dynamic patterns of covariation between neural activity and the direction of motion. We explore the hypothesis that the observed dynamics emerges from a synaptic connectivity structure that depends on the preferred directions of neurons in both preparatory and movement-related epochs, and we constrain the strength of both synaptic connectivity and external input parameters from data. While the model can reproduce neural activity for multiple combinations of the feedforward and recurrent connections, the solution that requires minimum external inputs is one where the observed patterns of covariance are shaped by external inputs during movement preparation, while they are dominated by strong direction-specific recurrent connectivity during movement execution. Our model also demonstrates that the way in which single-neuron tuning properties change over time can explain the level of orthogonality of preparatory and movement-related subspaces.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Nicholas G Hatsopoulos
- Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
- Committee on Computational Neuroscience, University of Chicago, Chicago, United States
| | - Nicolas Brunel
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke University, Durham, United States
- Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, United States
- Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, Duke University, Durham, United States
- Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, United States
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