Differential contributions of frontal lobe areas to eye/hand coordination

描述（由申请人提供）：当我们与我们的环境交互时，我们执行多个效应器的协调一致的运动。我特别感兴趣的是眼/手的协调--我们用视觉来指导手臂和手的运动。我们研究了恒河猴的前运动皮层在训练执行视觉行为。前运动皮层中的神经元在到达时是活跃的，其中一些神经元向眼肌多突触投射，这暗示它们参与眼/手协调。这项研究的两个首要目标是互补的：首先，我们将研究的条件下，感觉运动转换可以修改。我们的试验数据表明，训练经验和行为的直接需求可以塑造神经反应特性，导致前运动神经元对眼睛的位置变得更加敏感。诱导对新感觉方式的敏感性是神经可塑性的一种极端形式，这种类型通常只在脑损伤后出现。本研究的第二个目标是探索运动前区皮层在行为中的作用。我们的试验数据表明，前运动皮层可能比通常假设的更灵活。这项研究的主要意义在于，它将改变我们对感觉运动处理的理解，因为它比我们想象的更灵活、更有可塑性。主要的创新是我们使用多电极阵列记录来同时对多个大脑区域的学习进行纵向研究。我们的主要方法是在猴子学习和执行运动行为的同时记录来自多个皮层区域的大量神经数据集。这将提供一个丰富的和高影响力的数据集，将产生详细的比较信息的前运动皮层。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): As we interact with our environment, we perform dextrous, coordinated movements of multiple effectors. I am particularly interested in eye/hand coordination - the processes by which we use vision to guide our arm and hand movements. We study the premotor cortex in Rhesus monkeys trained to perform visuomotor behaviors. Neurons in premotor cortex are active in relation to reaching, and some of them project polysynaptically to the eye muscles, which implicates them in eye/hand coordination. The two overarching goals of this research are complementary: First, we will study the conditions under which sensory-motor transformations can be modified. Our pilot data suggest that training experience and the immediate demands of behavior can shape neural response properties, causing premotor neurons to become more sensitive to the position of the eyes. Inducing a sensitivity to a new sensory modality is an extreme form of neural plasticity, of a type typically only seen after brain injury. The second goal of this research is to explore the role of the premotor cortex in behavior. Our pilot data indicate that premotor cortex may be even more versatile and flexible than is typically assumed. The chief significance of this research is that it will change our understanding of sensory-motor processing by showing it is more flexible and malleable than has been presumed. The chief innovation is in our use of multielectrode array recordings to perform longitudinal studies of learning in multiple brain areas simultaneously. Our main approach is to record high-volume neural data sets from multiple cortical areas while monkeys learn and perform motor behaviors. This will provide a rich and high-impact data set that will yield detailed comparative information about the premotor cortices.