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Direct electrical stimulation of the premotor cortex shuts down awareness of voluntary actions
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2020), Nature Communications
- Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- A challenge for neuroscience is to understand the conscious and unconscious processes underlying construction of willed actions. We investigated the neural substrate of human motor awareness during awake brain surgery. In a first experiment, awake patients performed a voluntary hand motor task and verbally monitored their real-time performance, while different brain areas were transiently impaired by direct electrical stimulation (DES). In a second experiment, awake patients retrospectively reported their motor performance after DES. Based on anatomo-clinical evidence from motor awareness disorders following brain damage, the premotor cortex (PMC) was selected as a target area and the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) as a control area. In both experiments, DES on both PMC and S1 interrupted movement execution, but only DES on PMC dramatically altered the patients’ motor awareness, making them unconscious of the motor arrest. These findings endorse PMC as a crucial hub in the anatomo-functional network of human motor awareness.<br />Here, using electrical stimulation on patients undergoing awake brain surgery, the authors show that disruption of the premotor cortex makes patients unconscious of motor arrest. This finding suggests the premotor cortex is crucial for motor awareness.
- Subjects :
- Male
Premotor cortex
genetic structures
Neural substrate
medicine.medical_treatment
General Physics and Astronomy
Stimulation
Somatosensory system
Brain mapping
0302 clinical medicine
lcsh:Science
Brain Mapping
Multidisciplinary
musculoskeletal, neural, and ocular physiology
05 social sciences
Motor Cortex
Awareness
Middle Aged
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
medicine.anatomical_structure
Surgical oncology
Female
medicine.symptom
psychological phenomena and processes
Adult
Science
Brain damage
Motor Activity
Cognitive neuroscience
behavioral disciplines and activities
Article
050105 experimental psychology
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
03 medical and health sciences
medicine
Humans
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Retrospective Studies
Verbal Behavior
business.industry
General Chemistry
Hand
Electric Stimulation
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
nervous system
lcsh:Q
business
Neuroscience
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Communications, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2020), Nature Communications
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....711da1f6ee036e43891ffb8c9148b57d