Large-scale organization of preferred directions in the motor cortex. I. Motor cortical hyperacuity for forward reaching

Thomas Naselaris, Hugo Merchant, Bagrat Amirikian, Apostolos P Georgopoulos

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

We used statistical methods for spherical density estimation to evaluate the distribution of preferred directions of motor cortical cells recorded from monkeys making reaching movements in 3D space. We found that this distribution, although broad enough to represent the entire 3D continuum of reaching directions, exhibited an enrichment for reaching forward from the body and, to a lesser degree, for reaching backward toward the body. The distribution of preferred directions of cells in the motor cortex may have important implications for motor cortical function and for the decoding of arm trajectories from population activity.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)3231-3236
Number of pages6
JournalJournal of neurophysiology
Volume96
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2006

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Large-scale organization of preferred directions in the motor cortex. I. Motor cortical hyperacuity for forward reaching'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this