Supplementary motor area and other cortical areas in organization of voluntary movements in man

Abstract

1. Previous studies in man have revealed a coupling between the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) and the regional cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen. In normal man, increases in the regional cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen leads to proportional increases in the rCBF(34). We have measured the rCBF as an expression of the level of cortical activity simultaneously from 254 cortical regions in 28 patients with no major neurological defects, during rest and during planning and execution of a few types of learned voluntary movements with the hand. 2. We found that the rCBF increases exclusively in the supplementary motor area while subjects were programming a sequence of fast isolated movements of individual fingers, without actually executing it. 3. During execution of the same motor sequence, there were equivalent increases of the rCBF in both supplementary motor areas, but only in the contralateral primary motor area. In addition, there were more modest rCBF increases in the contralateral sensory hand area, the convexity part of the premotor area, and bilaterally in the inferior frontal region. 4. Repetitive fast flexions of the same finger or a sustained isometric muscular contraction raise the blood flow in the contralateral primary motor and sensory hand area. 5. A pure somatosensory discrimination of the shapes of objects, without any concomitant voluntary movements, also leaves the supplementary motor areas silent. 6. We conclude that the primary motor area and the part of the motor system it projects to by itself can control ongoing simple ballistic movements with the self-same body part. A sequence of different isolated finger movements requires programming in the supplementary motor areas. We suggest that the supplementary motor areas are programming areas for motor subroutines and that these areas form a queue of time-ordered motor commands before voluntary movement are executed by way of the primary motor area.

Electric and magnetic fields of the brain accompanying internal simulation of movement

“…Subthreshold, task-specific muscular activity during ISM has been reported in some studies [17,34] but not in others (e.g. [27]). …”

“…When subjects executed rhythmic movements blood flow increased mainly in the rolandic area. Roland et al [27] studied changes of rCBF when subjects either executed or 'internally simulated' a sequence of self-paced thumb to digits oppositions, rCBF was found to increase exclusively in the SMA during 'internal simulation'. During execution of the same motor sequence rCBF increased in both SMAs and in the MI which was contralateral to the performing hand.…”

Activity in the Supplementary Motor Area Related to Learning and Performance During a Sequential Visuomotor Task

“…Originally, the medial portion of Brodmann's area 6 was designated as the SMA based on the results of electrical stimulation experiments (Penfield and Welch 1951;Woolsey et al 1952). Since then, numerous lesion studies as well as singlecell recording and metabolic imaging studies have implicated the SMA in various functions, such as voluntary movement initiation (Deiber et al 1991;Eccles 1982;Goldberg 1985;Kurata and Wise 1988;Okano and Tanji 1987;Rizzolatti et al 1983;Romo and Schultz 1987;Thaler et al 1988), sequence learning (Clower and Alexander 1998;Grafton et al 1995Grafton et al , 1998Jenkins et al 1994;Mushiake et al 1991;Roland et al 1980;Tanji and Shima 1994), and bimanual coordination (Brinkman 1984;Halsband et al 1993;Laplane et al 1977;Tanji et al 1987Tanji et al , 1988. In addition, anatomical (Luppino et al 1990(Luppino et al , 1993 and physiological (Matsuzaka et al 1992) studies have identified two distinct subdivisions within the traditional SMA, the rostral presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA or F6) and the caudal supplementary motor area proper (SMAproper or F3).…”

Comparative analysis of actual and mental movement times in two graphic tasks

“…Finally, blood flow studies have shown an increase of the regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the superior occipital and in the posterior parietal cortex during visual imagery tasks (Goldenberg, Podreka, Steiner, & Williams, 1987;Roland, Eriksson, Stone-Elander, & Widen, 1987). During motor imagery, rCBF increases have been measured in the prefrontal cortex and in the supplementary motor areas Philipson, 1977, Roland &Friberg, 1985;Roland, Larsen, Lassen, & Skinhoj, 1980) as well as in the cerebellum (Decety, Philippon, & Ingvar, 1988).…”