Skip to main content
bioRxiv
  • Home
  • About
  • Submit
  • ALERTS / RSS
Advanced Search
New Results

M1 disruption delays motor processes but not deliberation about action choices

View ORCID ProfileGerard Derosiere, View ORCID ProfileDavid Thura, Paul Cisek, View ORCID ProfileJulie Duque
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/501205
Gerard Derosiere
1Institute of Neuroscience, Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Gerard Derosiere
  • For correspondence: gerard.derosiere@uclouvain.be
David Thura
2Lyon Neuroscience Research Center - Impact team, Inserm U1028 - CNRS UMR 5292, Bron, France
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for David Thura
Paul Cisek
3Department of Neuroscience, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Julie Duque
1Institute of Neuroscience, Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Université catholique de Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Julie Duque
  • Abstract
  • Full Text
  • Info/History
  • Metrics
  • Preview PDF
Loading

Abstract

Decisions about actions typically involve a period of deliberation that ends with the commitment to a choice and the motor processes overtly expressing that choice. Previous studies have shown that neural activity in sensorimotor areas, including the primary motor cortex (M1), correlates with deliberation features during action selection. Yet, the causal contribution of these areas to the decision process remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether M1 determines choice commitment, or whether it simply reflects decision signals coming from upstream structures and instead mainly contributes to the motor processes that follow commitment. To do so, we tested the impact of a disruption of M1 activity, induced by continuous theta burst stimulation (cTBS), on the behavior of human subjects in (1) a simple reaction time (SRT) task allowing us to estimate the duration of the motor processes and (2) a modified version of the tokens task (Cisek et al., 2009), which allowed us to estimate subjects’ time of commitment as well as accuracy criterion. The efficiency of cTBS was attested by a reduction in motor evoked potential amplitudes following M1 disruption, as compared to those following a sham stimulation. Furthermore, M1 cTBS lengthened SRTs, indicating that motor processes were perturbed by the intervention. Importantly, all of the behavioral results in the tokens task were similar following M1 disruption and sham stimulation, suggesting that the contribution of M1 to the deliberation process is potentially negligible. Taken together, these findings favor the view that M1 contribution is downstream of the decision process.

New and noteworthy Decisions between actions are ubiquitous in the animal realm. Deliberation during action choices entails changes in the activity of the sensorimotor areas controlling those actions, but the causal role of these areas is still often debated. Using continuous theta burst stimulation, we show that disrupting the primary motor cortex (M1) delays the motor processes that follow instructed commitment but does not alter volitional deliberation, suggesting that M1 contribution may be downstream of the decision process.

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.
Back to top
PreviousNext
Posted June 04, 2019.
Download PDF
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv.

NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
M1 disruption delays motor processes but not deliberation about action choices
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Share
M1 disruption delays motor processes but not deliberation about action choices
Gerard Derosiere, David Thura, Paul Cisek, Julie Duque
bioRxiv 501205; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/501205
Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Citation Tools
M1 disruption delays motor processes but not deliberation about action choices
Gerard Derosiere, David Thura, Paul Cisek, Julie Duque
bioRxiv 501205; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/501205

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Subject Area

  • Neuroscience
Subject Areas
All Articles
  • Animal Behavior and Cognition (2518)
  • Biochemistry (4968)
  • Bioengineering (3473)
  • Bioinformatics (15185)
  • Biophysics (6886)
  • Cancer Biology (5380)
  • Cell Biology (7718)
  • Clinical Trials (138)
  • Developmental Biology (4521)
  • Ecology (7135)
  • Epidemiology (2059)
  • Evolutionary Biology (10211)
  • Genetics (7504)
  • Genomics (9774)
  • Immunology (4826)
  • Microbiology (13186)
  • Molecular Biology (5130)
  • Neuroscience (29368)
  • Paleontology (203)
  • Pathology (836)
  • Pharmacology and Toxicology (1461)
  • Physiology (2131)
  • Plant Biology (4738)
  • Scientific Communication and Education (1008)
  • Synthetic Biology (1337)
  • Systems Biology (4003)
  • Zoology (768)