We review the properties of coordinated rhythmic bimanual movements and previous models of those movements. Those models capture the phenomena but they fail to show how the behaviors arise from known components of the perception/ action system and in particular, they do not explicitly represent the known perceptual coupling of the limb movements. We review our own studies on the perception of r...

Corpus callosum (CC) is involved in the performance of bimanual motor tasks. We asked whether its functional role could be investigated by combining a motor behavioral study on bimanual movements in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients with a quantitative magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) analysis of CC, which is shown to be damaged in this disease. MS patients and normal subjects w...

Eleven right-handed subjects performed uni- and bimanual tapping tasks. Hemodynamic responses as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the primary somato-motor cortex (SMC) showed that during bimanual activity the SMC contralateral to the hand taking the faster rate was more strongly activated than the SMC contralateral to hand taking the slower rate. There were no asymm...

The present study addressed the interactions between interlimb and intralimb constraints during the control of bimanual multi-joint movements. Participants performed eight coordination tasks involving bilateral shoulder-elbow (expt I) and shoulder-wrist (expt II) movements. Three principal findings were obtained. First, the principle of muscle homology (in-phase coordination), giving rise to mi...

Deficits in bimanual coordination of older adults have been demonstrated to significantly limit their functioning in daily life. As a bimanual sensorimotor task, instrument playing has great potential for motor and cognitive training in advanced age. While the process of matching a person's repetitive movements to auditory rhythmic cueing during instrument playing was documented to involve moto...

Three sources of interlimb interactions have been postulated to underlie the stability characteristics of bimanual coordination but have never been evaluated in conjunction: integrated timing of feedforward control signals, phase entrainment by contralateral afference, and timing corrections based on the perceived error of relative phase. In this study, the relative contributions of these inter...

Hinder MR. Interhemispheric connectivity between distinct motor regions as a window into bimanual coordination. J Neurophysiol 107: 1791–1794, 2012. First published November 30, 2011; doi:10.1152/jn.00822.2011.—Performing coordinated bimanual movement is a fundamental feature of the human motor system, with imaging techniques revealing the involvement of an extensive network of motor regions in...