Experimental setups with non-human primates typically make use of physical restraint, such as a primate chair, to control for spatial parameters like head position, gaze direction, and body and arm posture. IntroductionĬognitive sensorimotor neuroscience investigates how the brain processes sensory information, develops an action plan, and ultimately performs a corresponding action. We conclude that the primate frontoparietal network encodes reach goals beyond immediate reach during movement planning. The Reach Cage allows systems-level sensorimotor neuroscience studies with full-body movements in a configurable 3D spatial setting with unrestrained monkeys. Walk-and-reach targets could be decoded from premotor and parietal but not motor cortical activity during movement planning. Single unit activity is selective for different reach and walk-and-reach movements. We wirelessly recorded 192 broad-band neural signals from three cortical sensorimotor areas simultaneously. Movements show small trial-to-trial variability despite being unrestrained. We tracked 3D multi-joint arm and head movements using markerless motion capture. Two rhesus monkeys conducted instructed walk-and-reach movements towards targets flexibly positioned in the cage.
We present an experimental environment (Reach Cage) and a versatile visuo-haptic interaction system ( MaCaQuE) for investigating goal-directed whole-body movements of unrestrained monkeys. System neuroscience of motor cognition regarding the space beyond immediate reach mandates free, yet experimentally controlled movements.
0 kommentar(er)
