Sensorimotor processing articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    It remains unclear how the brain represents information regarding synchronized movements. Here, the authors investigated the response properties of cerebellar cells in macaques performing a synchronized saccade task and found three groups of cerebellar neurons with distinct peri-saccade response profiles.

    • Ken-ichi Okada
    • , Ryuji Takeya
    •  & Masaki Tanaka

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is not fully understood how behavioral flexibility is established in the context of automatic performance of a complex motor skill. Here the authors show that corticostriatal activity can flexibly transition between two modes during a reach to-grasp task in rats: reliable neural pattern generation for precise, automatic movements versus variable neural patterning for behavioral exploration.

    • Sravani Kondapavulur
    • , Stefan M. Lemke
    •  & Karunesh Ganguly

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Behavioral variation is thought to result from noise in sensory representations or final motor commands. In this study, the authors investigate variability in eye movements and model that variability as resulting from noisy sensorimotor transformations occurring in the middle temporal visual area.

    • Seth W. Egger
    •  & Stephen G. Lisberger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Models of perceptual decision making typically take into account either reactive responses to external stimuli or proactive aspects to decision making. Here the authors found that rat perceptual responses are generated by a combination of the standard evidence accumulation process with a fixed decision boundary, and a separate stochastic boundary collapse triggered by a parallel proactive process.

    • Lluís Hernández-Navarro
    • , Ainhoa Hermoso-Mendizabal
    •  & Alexandre Hyafil

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional brain imaging with two-photon microscopy is limited by a tradeoff between imaging area and acquisition speed. Here, the authors present Quadroscope, a flexible microscope which allows for simultaneous video rate acquisition of four independently targetable brain regions across 5 mm.

    • Mitchell Clough
    • , Ichun Anderson Chen
    •  & Jerry L. Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How visual social information informs movement is unclear. Here, the authors characterise the algorithm zebrafish use to transform visual inputs from neighbours into movement decisions during collective swimming behavior. The authors can also predict the neural circuits involved in transforming the visual input into movement decisions.

    • Roy Harpaz
    • , Minh Nguyet Nguyen
    •  & Florian Engert

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Hunting behavior typically contains a sequential motor program, including search, chase, attack, and consumption. Here, the authors show that periaqueductal gray neuronal ensembles encode the sequential hunting motor program, which might provide a framework for decoding complex instinctive behaviors.

    • Hong Yu
    • , Xinkuan Xiang
    •  & Haohong Li

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The function of brainstem reticulotegmental nucleus (RtTg) and its related circuits are not fully understood. Here, the authors report a cochlear nucleus-RtTg-spinal motor neuron circuit that specifically mediates acoustic startle reflexes.

    • Weiwei Guo
    • , Sijia Fan
    •  & Wei Xiong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Feedback modulates visual neurons, thought to help achieve flexible task performance. Here, the authors show decision-related feedback is not only relayed to task-relevant neurons, suggesting a broader mechanism and supporting a previously hypothesized link to feature-based attention.

    • Katrina R. Quinn
    • , Lenka Seillier
    •  & Hendrikje Nienborg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Value-based decision making involves choosing from multiple options with different values. The authors identify a neural mechanism that directly transforms absolute values to categorical choices within the superior colliculus and which supports value-based decision making critical for real-world economic behaviours.

    • Beizhen Zhang
    • , Janis Ying Ying Kan
    •  & Michael Christopher Dorris

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Disruption of FOXP2 cause Childhood Apraxia of Speech, a speech disorder marked by difficulties in accurately sequencing vocal motor actions. The authors show that disruption of FoxP2 in the adult songbird similarly disrupts birdsong and link dopaminergic signalling to disruptions in song production.

    • Lei Xiao
    • , Devin P. Merullo
    •  & Todd F. Roberts

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Simões, Levy et al. use a combination of experiments and models to study how Drosophila flies steer away from dangerous heat. They discover that flies use small temperature differences between the antennae to turn clear of thermal danger; they also demonstrate that heat avoidance, a simple innate behavior, contains unexpected plasticity.

    • José Miguel Simões
    • , Joshua I. Levy
    •  & Marco Gallio

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural circuit mechanisms for sensorimotor control by the prefrontal cortex (PFC) are unclear. Here, the authors show that PFC outputs to the visual cortex and superior colliculus respectively facilitate sensory processing and action selection, allowing the PFC to independently control complementary but distinct behavioral functions.

    • Rafiq Huda
    • , Grayson O. Sipe
    •  & Mriganka Sur

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The challenge of sensory substitution as a therapeutic approach is to design systems that are well accepted by subjects. Here, in deaf songbirds, the authors substitute hearing with vision, suggesting substitution devices could provide sensory feedback for the key actions that are deprived.

    • Anja T. Zai
    • , Sophie Cavé-Lopez
    •  & Richard H. R. Hahnloser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Even decisions based on simple sensory stimuli result from an interplay between many brain regions. Here, the authors track the dynamics of information about sensory input and behavioral choice across the human cerebral cortex, uncovering feedback of decision signals to early sensory cortex.

    • Niklas Wilming
    • , Peter R. Murphy
    •  & Tobias H. Donner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Motor neurons are generally considered to be passive receivers of commands from other neurons. However, this study shows that motor neurons may shape locomotor behaviour by regulating premotor neurons, and that premotor neurons serve to integrate information from sensory neurons and motor neurons.

    • Ping Liu
    • , Bojun Chen
    •  & Zhao-Wen Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Young songbirds learn to imitate their parents’ songs. Here, the authors find that, in baby birds, neurons in a brain region at the interface of auditory and motor circuits signal the onsets of song syllables during both tutoring and babbling, suggesting a specific neural mechanism for vocal imitation.

    • Emily L. Mackevicius
    • , Michael T. L. Happ
    •  & Michale S. Fee

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study shows that cerebellar molecular layer interneurons (MLIs) develop responses encoding for identity of the stimulus in an associative learning task. Chemogenetic inhibition of MLIs decreased the ability of mice to discriminate stimuli suggesting that MLIs encode for stimulus valence.

    • Ming Ma
    • , Gregory L. Futia
    •  & Diego Restrepo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The thalamus provides sensory input to the cortex, but many aspects of thalamocortical signaling remain unknown. Here, the authors reveal parallel non-overlapping thalamic pathways with distinct representations of tactile and decision-related information during a goal-directed sensorimotor task.

    • Sami El-Boustani
    • , B. Semihcan Sermet
    •  & Carl C. H. Petersen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Speech production is thought to rely on speech motor programs in the left cerebral hemisphere and on auditory feedback control by the right halve of the human brain. Here, the authors reveal that the left hemisphere preferentially controls temporal speech features while the right hemisphere controls speech by analyzing spectral features of the auditory feedback.

    • Mareike Floegel
    • , Susanne Fuchs
    •  & Christian A. Kell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans are normally not aware that their eyes are always in motion, even when attempting to maintain steady gaze on a point. Here the authors show that these small eye movements are finely controlled and contribute more than two lines in a standard eye-chart test of visual acuity.

    • Janis Intoy
    •  & Michele Rucci

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Voluntary action and free will have been associated with cortical activity, referred to as “the readiness potential” that precedes self-initiated actions by about 1 s. Here, the authors show that the involuntary and cyclic motor act of breathing is coupled with voluntary action and the readiness potential.

    • Hyeong-Dong Park
    • , Coline Barnoud
    •  & Olaf Blanke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Flying insects position their antennae by integrating multisensory inputs across different timescales. This study describes an underlying hierarchical neural circuit that maintains antennal position in a fast and robust manner, whilst retaining flexibility to incorporate slower feedback to modulate position.

    • Dinesh Natesan
    • , Nitesh Saxena
    •  & Sanjay P. Sane

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The degree of subjective confidence in deciding based on ambiguous sensory cues facilitates learning. Here, the authors report distinct functions of the basolateral amygdala and anterior cingulate cortex on implicit confidence judgements as well as flexible learning under uncertain conditions in rats.

    • A. Stolyarova
    • , M. Rakhshan
    •  & A. Izquierdo

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Performance anxiety can impair motor skill, and even affect expert athletes and musicians. Here, the authors show that anxiety affects performance at the ‘junction’ between two well-learned action sequences, and that this affect is associated with activity in dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC).

    • Gowrishankar Ganesh
    • , Takehiro Minamoto
    •  & Masahiko Haruno

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Disruption of cerebellar activity impairs working memory during evidence accumulation in mice. Here, the authors show that optogenetic perturbation of Purkinje cell activity disrupts the accurate accumulation of somatosensory information in working memory during perceptual decision-making.

    • Ben Deverett
    • , Mikhail Kislin
    •  & Samuel S.-H. Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Spinal CPGs transmit movement commands through rhythmic synaptic drive onto the spinal premotor network. Here, the authors use paired recordings to demonstrate that spinal neurons have decorrelated synaptic activity suggesting a CPG network with sparse convergent connectivity.

    • Marija Radosevic
    • , Alex Willumsen
    •  & Rune W. Berg

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Many natural behaviours involve tracking of a target in space. Here, the authors describe a task to assess this behaviour in mice and use in vivo electrophysiology, calcium imaging, optogenetics, and chemogenetics to investigate the role of the striatum in target pursuit.

    • Namsoo Kim
    • , Haofang E. Li
    •  & Henry H. Yin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The influence of locomotion on somatosensory processing in barrel cortex is not well understood. Here the authors report distinct layer-specific responses, with L5 primarily reporting changes in touch condition while L2/3 neurons integrating touch and locomotion continuously.

    • Aslı Ayaz
    • , Andreas Stäuble
    •  & Fritjof Helmchen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is known that Purkinje cell PKC-dependent depression is involved in the stabilization of self-motion based hippocampal representation. Here the authors describe decreased stability of hippocampal place cells based on allocentric cues in mice lacking Purkinje cell PP2B-dependent potentiation.

    • Julie Marie Lefort
    • , Jean Vincent
    •  & Christelle Rochefort

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Performance is generally used as a metric to assay whether an animal has learnt a particular perceptual task. Here the authors demonstrate that in the context of probe trials without the possibility of reward, animals perform the correct instrumental response suggesting a latent knowledge of the task much before it is manifest in their performance.

    • Kishore V. Kuchibhotla
    • , Tom Hindmarsh Sten
    •  & Robert C. Froemke

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Santiago Herce Castañón and colleagues show that people are blind to mental errors that arise when combining multiple pieces of discordant information. This blindness helps explain why cognitive judgements often are suboptimal.

    • Santiago Herce Castañón
    • , Rani Moran
    •  & Christopher Summerfield

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Blindsight refers to visual behaviours that are spared following lesions to the primary visual cortex and is thought to involve pulvinar circuits. Here, the authors report that selective inactivation of the ventral pulvinar or the superior colliculus leads to impairment in visually guided saccades in blindsight.

    • Masaharu Kinoshita
    • , Rikako Kato
    •  & Tadashi Isa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The reorientation response of Drosophila larva to light is an innate behaviour. Here the authors identify a pair of GABAergic neurons that mediate a disinhibitory mechanism that regulates the larval reorientation response.

    • Weiqiao Zhao
    • , Peipei Zhou
    •  & Zhefeng Gong

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Perceptual constancy requires neural representations selective for object identity, yet tolerant of identity-preserving transformations. Here, the authors show that sound identity is represented robustly in auditory cortex and that behavioral generalization requires precise timing of identity information.

    • Stephen M. Town
    • , Katherine C. Wood
    •  & Jennifer K. Bizley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans compensate for sensory noise by biasing sensory estimates toward prior expectations, as predicted by models of Bayesian inference. Here, the authors show that humans perform ‘late inference’ downstream of sensory processing to mitigate the effects of noisy internal mental computations.

    • Evan D. Remington
    • , Tiffany V. Parks
    •  & Mehrdad Jazayeri

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