Wireless recording from unrestrained monkeys reveals motor goal encoding beyond immediate reach in frontoparietal cortex

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>System neuroscience of motor cognition regarding the space beyond immediate reach mandates free, yet experimentally controlled movements. We present an experimental environment (Reach Cage) and a versatile visuo-haptic interaction system (<jats:italic>MaCaQuE</jats:italic>) for investigating goal-directed whole-body movements of unrestrained monkeys. Two rhesus monkeys conducted instructed walk-and-reach movements towards targets flexibly positioned in the cage. We tracked 3D multi-joint arm and head movements using markerless motion capture. Movements show small trial-to-trial variability despite being unrestrained. We wirelessly recorded 192 broad-band neural signals from three cortical sensorimotor areas simultaneously. Single unit activity is selective for different reach and walk-and-reach movements. Walk-and-reach targets could be decoded from premotor and parietal but not motor cortical activity during movement planning. The Reach Cage allows systems-level sensorimotor neuroscience studies with full-body movements in a configurable 3D spatial setting with unrestrained monkeys. We conclude that the primate frontoparietal network encodes reach goals beyond immediate reach during movement planning.</jats:p>

AHEAD: Automatic Holistic Energy-Aware Design Methodology for MLP Neural Network Hardware Generation in Proactive BMI Edge Devices

“…As illustrated at the top of Figure 2, the neuronal data are measured and collected through wireless neural recordings during animal experiments [11]. The neuronal activities are from 192-channel FMAs implanted in three different brain areas of the rhesus macaque: the parietal reach region (PRR), the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), and the primary motor cortex (M1).…”

“…[10] is a unique project for studying proactive predictions of future planned actions with online decoding. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that it has a proactive BMI composed of wireless data acquisition for receiving neural brain activity [11] and a neural network decoder for processing the recorded sequence-predicting neural activity and inferring predicted action sequences for proactive control in real time.…”

“…The development of a neural network decoder for proactive BMI control has two major challenges: adaptivity and power consumption. As the implanted floating microwire arrays (FMAs) move relative to the recorded cells and the information represented by a specific neuron's activity may change due to neuroplasticity, the decoder from day one cannot be leveraged to work in different experimental sessions on the day n later [12,13]. As a result, the neural network decoder needs to adapt to the above situations on day n with a modification of the topology and a retrain procedure for recalibration.…”

Experimental Testing of Bionic Peripheral Nerve and Muscle Interfaces: Animal Model Considerations

“…Training is mostly needed for making use of the high number of precisely repeated movements and the experimentally well-controlled timing, though, which in other animal models is not even an option. This training effort can be reduced with increasing naturalism of the behavior to be studied, e.g., walking in a freely moving animals (Berger and Gail, 2018) provided wireless transmission over long enough distances or data logging for EMG signals is available. Particularly in NHPs, since they have large degree of freedom for arm movements and precise grasp behavior, external devices need to be wellprotected and outside the reach of the animals.…”

Highlights from the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for the Neural Control of Movement

“…Michael Berger presented a novel approach for investigating cortical activity in unrestrained nonhuman primates. By developing an experimental environment within a monkey cage, it is now possible to study goal-directed behavior involving walking and reaching of rhesus monkeys while recording intracortical single unit activity (Berger and Gail 2018). Berger investigated activity in the fronto-parietal network regarding movement planning for reaching movements to near-located and walk-and-reaching movements to far-located movement goals.…”