Interval Tuning in the Primate Medial Premotor Cortex as a General Timing Mechanism
Interval Tuning in the Primate Medial Premotor Cortex as a General Timing Mechanism
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.5513-12.2013
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发表时间：
2013-05-22
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Gamez, Jorge
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Merchant, Hugo;Perez, Oswaldo;Gamez, Jorge
运动表现期间时间的精确量化对于许多复杂行为至关重要，包括音乐执行，语音清晰度和运动;然而，其神经机制主要是未知的。我们发现，行为正常的猴子内侧运动前皮质（MPC）中的神经元会根据有节奏的敲击任务期间产生的间隔的持续时间进行调整。间隔调谐的神经元显示出类似的首选的时间间隔，在不同的生产间隔的数量和用于驱动时间处理的方式的敲击行为。此外，我们发现，相同的神经元群体能够多路复用有序结构的一系列有节奏的运动和广泛的持续时间在数百毫秒的范围内。我们的研究结果还揭示了一种可能的增益机制，用于对时间化运动序列中的间隔总数进行编码，其中间隔调谐细胞显示出其活动对于较长序列的间隔的倍增效应。这些数据表明，MPC是核心时序网络的一部分，该网络使用间隔调谐作为信号来表示时间被明确量化的各种行为背景下的时间处理。
The precise quantification of time during motor performance is critical for many complex behaviors, including musical execution, speech articulation, and sports; however, its neural mechanisms are primarily unknown. We found that neurons in the medial premotor cortex (MPC) of behaving monkeys are tuned to the duration of produced intervals during rhythmic tapping tasks. Interval-tuned neurons showed similar preferred intervals across tapping behaviors that varied in the number of produced intervals and the modality used to drive temporal processing. In addition, we found that the same population of neurons is able to multiplex the ordinal structure of a sequence of rhythmic movements and a wide range of durations in the range of hundreds of milliseconds. Our results also revealed a possible gain mechanism for encoding the total number of intervals in a sequence of temporalized movements, where interval-tuned cells show a multiplicative effect of their activity for longer sequences of intervals. These data suggest that MPC is part of a core timing network that uses interval tuning as a signal to represent temporal processing in a variety of behavioral contexts where time is explicitly quantified.