Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex

Abstract The process by which the cerebral cortex generates movements to achieve different tasks remains poorly understood. Here, we leveraged the rich repertoire of well-controlled primate locomotor behaviors to study how task-specific movements are encoded across the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd),...

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Main Authors: Simon Borgognon, Nicolò Macellari, Alexandra M. Hickey, Matthew G. Perich, Houman Javaheri, Rafael Ornelas-Kobayashi, Maude Delacombaz, Christopher Hitz, Florian Fallegger, Stéphanie P. Lacour, Erwan Bezard, Eric M. Rouiller, Jocelyne Bloch, Tomislav Milekovic, Ismael Seáñez, Grégoire Courtine
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-07-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61172-8
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author Simon Borgognon
Nicolò Macellari
Alexandra M. Hickey
Matthew G. Perich
Houman Javaheri
Rafael Ornelas-Kobayashi
Maude Delacombaz
Christopher Hitz
Florian Fallegger
Stéphanie P. Lacour
Erwan Bezard
Eric M. Rouiller
Jocelyne Bloch
Tomislav Milekovic
Ismael Seáñez
Grégoire Courtine
author_facet Simon Borgognon
Nicolò Macellari
Alexandra M. Hickey
Matthew G. Perich
Houman Javaheri
Rafael Ornelas-Kobayashi
Maude Delacombaz
Christopher Hitz
Florian Fallegger
Stéphanie P. Lacour
Erwan Bezard
Eric M. Rouiller
Jocelyne Bloch
Tomislav Milekovic
Ismael Seáñez
Grégoire Courtine
author_sort Simon Borgognon
collection DOAJ
description Abstract The process by which the cerebral cortex generates movements to achieve different tasks remains poorly understood. Here, we leveraged the rich repertoire of well-controlled primate locomotor behaviors to study how task-specific movements are encoded across the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), primary motor cortex (M1), and primary somatosensory cortex (S1) under naturalistic conditions. Neural population activity was confined within low-dimensional manifolds and partitioned into task-dependent and task-independent subspaces. However, the prevalence of these subspaces differed between cortical regions. PMd primarily operated within its task-dependent subspace, while S1, and to a lesser extent M1, largely evolved within their task-independent subspaces. The temporal structure of movement was encoded in the task-independent subspaces, which also dominated the PMd-to-M1 communication as the movement plans were translated into motor commands. Our results suggest that the brain utilizes different cortical regions to serialize the motor control by first performing task-specific computations in PMd to then generate task-independent commands in M1.
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spelling doaj-art-6ceeded1ab744f27aefe38858fb14d4a2025-08-20T03:46:20ZengNature PortfolioNature Communications2041-17232025-07-0116111810.1038/s41467-025-61172-8Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortexSimon Borgognon0Nicolò Macellari1Alexandra M. Hickey2Matthew G. Perich3Houman Javaheri4Rafael Ornelas-Kobayashi5Maude Delacombaz6Christopher Hitz7Florian Fallegger8Stéphanie P. Lacour9Erwan Bezard10Eric M. Rouiller11Jocelyne Bloch12Tomislav Milekovic13Ismael Seáñez14Grégoire Courtine15NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)Department of Fundamental Neuroscience, University of GenevaInstitute of Neuroinformatics, ETH Zürich and University of ZürichNeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology, Institute of Microengineering, Institute of Bioengineering, NeuroX Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Neuroprosthetic Technology, Institute of Microengineering, Institute of Bioengineering, NeuroX Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)University of Bordeaux, CNRS, IMN, UMR 5293Department of Neurosciences and Movement Sciences, University of FribourgNeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)NeuroX Institute and Brain Mind Institute, School of Life Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL)Abstract The process by which the cerebral cortex generates movements to achieve different tasks remains poorly understood. Here, we leveraged the rich repertoire of well-controlled primate locomotor behaviors to study how task-specific movements are encoded across the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd), primary motor cortex (M1), and primary somatosensory cortex (S1) under naturalistic conditions. Neural population activity was confined within low-dimensional manifolds and partitioned into task-dependent and task-independent subspaces. However, the prevalence of these subspaces differed between cortical regions. PMd primarily operated within its task-dependent subspace, while S1, and to a lesser extent M1, largely evolved within their task-independent subspaces. The temporal structure of movement was encoded in the task-independent subspaces, which also dominated the PMd-to-M1 communication as the movement plans were translated into motor commands. Our results suggest that the brain utilizes different cortical regions to serialize the motor control by first performing task-specific computations in PMd to then generate task-independent commands in M1.https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61172-8
spellingShingle Simon Borgognon
Nicolò Macellari
Alexandra M. Hickey
Matthew G. Perich
Houman Javaheri
Rafael Ornelas-Kobayashi
Maude Delacombaz
Christopher Hitz
Florian Fallegger
Stéphanie P. Lacour
Erwan Bezard
Eric M. Rouiller
Jocelyne Bloch
Tomislav Milekovic
Ismael Seáñez
Grégoire Courtine
Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
Nature Communications
title Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
title_full Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
title_fullStr Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
title_full_unstemmed Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
title_short Regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
title_sort regional specialization of movement encoding across the primate sensorimotor cortex
url https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61172-8
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