Movement execution can be delayed by transcranial magnetic stimulation delivered over primary motor cortical areas, resulting in transient inhibition of cortico-motor output. Inhibition or disruption of higher-order motor planning and preparatory processes, such as are thought to occur in the supplementary motor area (SMA), would allow an examination of processes at other stages of the motor co...

Whether human infants perceive televised stimuli in the same way to live stimuli largely remains unknown. Action observation, which has been extensively confirmed to elicit activation of internal motor representation, provides a promising framework for investigating this issue. This 'mirror-matching' property has been found in the monkey premotor cortex as well as the premotor and primary motor...

We present a new method for separating multiple task-related events from other physiological and physical events revealed by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) signals. The method separates fMRI signals into di4erent events by minimizing the spatial and temporal correlations between events. The method was used to analyze fMRI data sets from subjects performing real and imagined motor ...

Motor development - traditionally studied in WEIRD populations - falls victim to assumptions of universality similar to other domains described by Henrich et al. However, cross-cultural research illustrates the extraordinary diversity that is normal in motor skill acquisition. Indeed, motor development provides an important domain for evaluating cultural challenges to a general behavioral science.

Objective To investigate neural correlates associated with recovery of motor function over 6 months in patients with basal ganglia (BG) stroke using acetazolamide (ACZ) stress brain-perfusion single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Methods Medical records of 22 patients presenting first-ever BG stroke were retrospectively reviewed. Regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) and cerebrovas...

This study questions the validity of the principle of a proximo-distal direction of motor development and the idea that distal skill emerges out of and is dependent upon proximal control. To determine the relationship between proximal and distal motor function, 12 normal infants (9 girls, 3 boys), 30-weeks of age, were recorded on videotape while reaching for a one-inch red cube contained in a ...

The objective was to test three motor system-specific hypotheses in multiple sclerosis patients: (i) corticospinal tract and primary motor cortex imaging measures differ between multiple sclerosis patients and controls; (ii) in patients, these measures correlate with disability; (iii) in patients, corticospinal tract measures correlate with measures of the ipsilateral primary motor cortex. Elev...

In many situations, decision makers need to negotiate between the competing demands of response speed and response accuracy, a dilemma generally known as the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT). Despite the ubiquity of SAT, the question of how neural decision circuits implement SAT has received little attention up until a year ago. We review recent studies that show SAT is modulated in association an...

In brain-computer interfacing (BCI), motor imagery is used to provide a gateway to an effector action or behavior. However, in contrast to the main functional role of the primary motor cortex (M1) in motor execution, the M1's involvement in motor imagery has been debated, while the roles of secondary motor areas such as the premotor cortex (PMC) and supplementary motor area (SMA) in motor image...

Two motor areas are known to exist in the medial frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex of primates, the supplementary motor area (SMA) and the presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA). We report here on an aspect of cellular activity that characterizes the pre-SMA. Monkeys were trained to perform three different movements sequentially in a temporal order. The correct order was planned on the basis o...