Emergent coordination with a brain–machine interface: implications for the neural basis of motor learning

Abstract

How patterns of covariance in motor output and neural activity emerge over the course of learning is a topic of ongoing investigation. Vaidya et al. (Vaidya M, Balasubramanian K, Southerland J, Badreldin I, Eleryan A, Shattuck K, Gururangan S, Slutzky M, Osborne L, Fagg A, Oweiss K, Hatsopoulos NG. J Neurophysiol 119: 1291-1304, 2018) investigate the emergence of patterns of covariance in the motor output and neural activity in chronically amputated macaques learning reach-to-grasp movements with a brain-machine interface. The authors' findings have implications for uncovering general principles of how neural coordination unfolds while learning a different motor behavior.