The mode of movement selection Movement-related cortical potentials prior to freely selected and repetitive movements

Abstract In two previous studies, the readiness potential (RP) has been reported to be influenced by the mode of movement selection. Freely selected movements were found to have a higher RP amplitude than fixed repetitive movements. This was attributed to the higher demands on planning for the performance of freely selected movements. However, movements in the free mode are distinct from movements in the fixed mode in more than one respect. For example, they are also associated with a higher degree of alteration of the side and/or the finger of movement execution and hence serial “novelty” across blocks of trials. The aim of our study was to establish whether the greater novelty of movements in the free mode could also contribute to the enhanced RP amplitude of movements in the free mode of movement selection by comparing free versus fixed movements performed in long and short sequences that differ in terms of serial novelty. The RP was recorded in 31 healthy young subjects with electrodes placed over Fz, C3, Cz, C4 and Pz. Two types of movement were studied: randomly chosen button presses with right or left index or middle finger (free mode), and repetitive pressing of a predetermined button (fixed mode). We found that: (1) in confirmation of previous studies, the amplitude of the RP was higher for freely selected than free movements; (2) the effect of the mode of movement selection was present over central electrodes but was most pronounced for parietal electrode Pz, with movements in the free mode showing the earliest and greatest increase in negativity at this site; (3) this parietally enhanced negativity in free compared with the fixed mode was absent after the subjects had performed a block of long movement sequences, suggesting that serial novelty of movements also contributed to the effect of mode on the RP amplitude; (4) both the latency and the magnitude of the lateralized readiness potential (LRP) were altered by the mode of movement selection. Movements in the free mode showed an earlier onset of the LRP, which had a higher peak than the LRP prior to movements in the fixed mode. This effect was mainly due to an increased amplitude of the RP over the electrode contralateral to the side of movement prior to freely selected movements. These findings are discussed in relation to previous RP and positron emission tomography studies.

[1]  R. C. Oldfield.  The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. , 1971, Neuropsychologia.

[2]  E Donchin,et al.  Studies of Squeezing: Handedness, Responding Hand, Response Force, and Asymmetry of Readiness Potential , 1974, Science.

[3]  M. Taylor,et al.  Bereitschaftspontential during the acquisition of a skilled motor task. , 1978, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[4]  Hans Helmut Kornhuber,et al.  An electrical sign of participation of the mesial ‘supplementary’ motor cortex in human voluntary finger movement , 1978, Brain Research.

[5]  W. Becker,et al.  Cerebral potentials prior to various force deployments. , 1980, Progress in brain research.

[6]  Hans Helmut Kornhuber,et al.  Force uncertainty of voluntary movement and human movement-related potentials , 1983, Biological Psychology.

[7]  G. Andersson,et al.  Relation of intramuscular pressure to the force output and myoelectric signal of skeletal muscle , 1984, Journal of orthopaedic research : official publication of the Orthopaedic Research Society.

[8]  Ettore Lettich,et al.  Ten Percent Electrode System for Topographic Studies of Spontaneous and Evoked EEG Activities , 1985 .

[9]  C. C. Wood,et al.  Scalp distributions of event-related potentials: an ambiguity associated with analysis of variance models. , 1985, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[10]  H. Shibasaki,et al.  Cortical potentials preceding voluntary movement: evidence for three periods of preparation in man. , 1986, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[11]  L. Deecke.  Bereitschaftspotential as an indicator of movement preparation in supplementary motor area and motor cortex. , 1987, Ciba Foundation symposium.

[12]  J. Tanji,et al.  Relation of neurons in the nonprimary motor cortex to bilateral hand movement , 1987, Nature.

[13]  L. Mulder,et al.  Use of partial stimulus information in response processing. , 1988, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[14]  M. Coles.  Modern mind-brain reading: psychophysiology, physiology, and cognition. , 1989, Psychophysiology.

[15]  P Svasek,et al.  [Microcomputer-assisted 64-channel EEG amplifier (DC-2kHz) with digital filter and 16 bit resolution]. , 1990, Biomedizinische Technik. Biomedical engineering.

[16]  Carla M. Bosco,et al.  Event-related brain potentials as indices of information extraction and response priming. , 1990, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[17]  P. Herberts,et al.  Intramuscular pressure and electromyography in four shoulder muscles , 1991, Journal of orthopaedic research : official publication of the Orthopaedic Research Society.

[18]  H Shibasaki,et al.  Invasive Recording of Movement‐Related Cortical Potentials in Humans , 1992, Journal of clinical neurophysiology : official publication of the American Electroencephalographic Society.

[19]  R. Seitz,et al.  Learning of Sequential Finger Movements in Man: A Combined Kinematic and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Study , 1992, The European journal of neuroscience.

[20]  Richard S. J. Frackowiak,et al.  Impaired mesial frontal and putamen activation in Parkinson's disease: A positron emission tomography study , 1992, Annals of neurology.

[21]  E. Donchin,et al.  Probability effects on stimulus evaluation and response processes. , 1992, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[22]  M. Honda,et al.  Both primary motor cortex and supplementary motor area play an important role in complex finger movement. , 1993, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[23]  H. Shibasaki,et al.  A cortical slow potential is larger before an isolated movement of a single finger than simultaneous movement of two fingers. , 1993, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[24]  A. Crenshaw,et al.  Intramuscular pressure and electromyography as indexes of force during isokinetic exercise. , 1993, Journal of applied physiology.

[25]  D. Brooks,et al.  Motor sequence learning: a study with positron emission tomography , 1994, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[26]  I Rektor,et al.  Intracerebral recording of movement related readiness potentials: an exploration in epileptic patients. , 1994, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[27]  H Shibasaki,et al.  Movement-related potentials associated with bilateral simultaneous and unilateral movements recorded from human supplementary motor area. , 1995, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[28]  M Eimer,et al.  Stimulus-response compatibility and automatic response activation: evidence from psychophysiological studies. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[29]  Michael G. H. Coles,et al.  Mental chronometry and the study of human information processing. , 1995 .

[30]  M. Petrides,et al.  Neural correlates of mental transformations of the body-in-space. , 1995, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[31]  C. Marsden,et al.  Movement‐related cortical potentials preceding repetitive and random‐choice hand movements in parkinson's disease , 1995, Annals of neurology.

[32]  A. Cools,et al.  Dipole source analysis suggests selective modulation of the supplementary motor area contribution to the readiness potential. , 1996, Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology.

[33]  W G Tatton,et al.  Contributions of the mesial frontal cortex to the premovement potentials associated with intermittent hand movements in humans , 1996, Human brain mapping.

[34]  R. Passingham,et al.  Self-initiated versus externally triggered movements. I. An investigation using measurement of regional cerebral blood flow with PET and movement-related potentials in normal and Parkinson's disease subjects. , 1996, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[35]  R. Passingham,et al.  Self-initiated versus externally triggered movements. II. The effect of movement predictability on regional cerebral blood flow. , 2000, Brain : a journal of neurology.