Representation of motor habit in a sequence of repetitive reach and grasp movements performed by macaque monkeys: Evidence for a contribution of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

Abstract

In the context of an autologous cell transplantation study, a unilateral biopsy of cortical tissue was surgically performed from the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) in two intact adult macaque monkeys (dlPFC lesioned group), together with the implantation of a chronic chamber providing access to the left motor cortex. Three other monkeys were subjected to the same chronic chamber implantation, but without dlPFC biopsy (control group). All monkeys were initially trained to perform sequential manual dexterity tasks, requiring precision grip. The motor performance and the prehension's sequence (temporal order to grasp pellets from different spatial locations) were analysed for each hand.Following the surgery, transient and moderate deficits of manual dexterity per se occurred in both groups, indicating that they were not due to the dlPFC lesion (most likely related to the recording chamber implantation and/or general anaesthesia/medication). In contrast, changes of motor habit were observed for the sequential order of grasping in the two monkeys with dlPFC lesion only. The changes were more prominent in the monkey subjected to the largest lesion, supporting the notion of a specific effect of the dlPFC lesion on the motor habit of the monkeys. These observations are reminiscent of previous studies using conditional tasks with delay that have proposed a specialization of the dlPFC for visuo-spatial working memory, except that this is in a different context of "free-will", nonconditional manual dexterity task, without a component of working memory.

Enhancement of Striatal Dopaminergic Function Following Autologous Neural Cell Ecosystems (ANCE) Transplantation in a Non-Human Primate Model of Parkinson’s Disease

“…All surgical procedures for biopsy are available in details in our previous study [29]. The cortical biopsies, limited in volume and spatially restricted to the prefrontal cortex, did not have significant impact on motor performance itself (scores) in the various behavioral tasks used in the laboratory, as previously reported [29,35].…”

Role of primary motor cortex in the control of manual dexterity assessed via sequential bilateral lesion in the adult macaque monkey: A case study

“…The modified Brinkman board task has extensively been used in our laboratory (e.g. Liu and Rouiller, 1999;Schmidlin et al, 2004Schmidlin et al, , 2005Schmidlin et al, , 2011Freund et al, 2006Freund et al, , 2007Freund et al, , 2009Beaud et al, 2008Beaud et al, , 2012Wannier-Morino et al, 2008;Bashir et al, 2012;Hoogewoud et al, 2013;Kaeser et al, 2010Kaeser et al, , 2011Kaeser et al, , 2013Kaeser et al, , 2014Chatagny et al, 2013;Wyss et al, 2013). The modified Brinkman board task was performed daily, 5 days a week, except when alternated with ICMS days during the mapping periods and every two days -7 days a week -during the critical acute and recovery periods.…”

“…Bashir et al, 2012;Freund et al, 2006Freund et al, , 2009Kaeser et al, 2010Kaeser et al, , 2011Kaeser et al, , 2013Kaeser et al, , 2014Liu and Rouiller, 1999;Schmidlin et al, 2004Schmidlin et al, , 2005Schmidlin et al, , 2011Wyss et al, 2013), derived from an early initial version (Brinkman and Kuypers, 1973;Brinkman, 1984); (ii) the modified Klu¨ver board task to assess various types of finger grip, ranging from power grip to precision grip (e.g. Nudo et al, 1992;Xerri et al, 1998;Murata et al, 2008;Milliken et al, 2013;Qi et al, 2013;Sugiyama et al, 2013).…”

Effects of dorsolateral prefrontal cortex lesion on motor habit and performance assessed with manual grasping and control of force in macaque monkeys

“…More recently, Kaeser and colleagues reported original data underlying the role of dlPFC in motor habit representation (Kaeser et al 2013). In this study, the authors performed cortical biopsies in dlPFC on two macaque monkeys ( Macaca fascicularis ) and assessed their impact on sequential motor behavior (habit).…”

“…In this study, the authors performed cortical biopsies in dlPFC on two macaque monkeys ( Macaca fascicularis ) and assessed their impact on sequential motor behavior (habit). More specifically, the “modified Brinkman board” task was used to quantify “free-will” spatiotemporal retrieval of pellets, performed with precision grip movements executed unimanually (Brinkman and Kuypers 1973; Liu and Rouiller 1999; Schmidlin et al 2011; Kaeser et al 2013). In comparison with control monkeys, dlPFC (area 46) lesioned animals exhibited a significant impact on the spatiotemporal sequences (order to visit the wells), whereas the motor performance per se (score) remained unaffected (Kaeser et al 2013).…”