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Updated: Apr 24, 2026

Measuring and Manipulating Functionally Specific Neural Pathways in the Human Motor System with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Published on: February 23, 2020
The parietal reach region selectively anti-synchronizes with dorsal premotor cortex during planning
Chess Stetson1, Richard A Andersen2
1Division of Biology and Biological Engineering and Program in Computation and Neural Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125 stetson@post.harvard.edu.
Abstract:
Recent reports have indicated that oscillations shared across distant cortical regions can enhance their connectivity, but do coherent oscillations ever diminish connectivity? We investigated oscillatory activity in two distinct reach-related regions in the awake behaving monkey (Macaca mulatta): the parietal reach region (PRR) and the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd). PRR and PMd were found to oscillate at similar frequencies (beta, 15-30 Hz) during periods of fixation and movement planning. At first glance, the stronger oscillator of the two, PRR, would seem to drive the weaker, PMd. However, a more fine-grained measure, the partial spike-field coherence, revealed a different relationship. Relative to global beta-band activity in the brain, action potentials in PRR anti-synchronize with PMd oscillations. These data suggest that, rather than driving PMd during planning, PRR neurons fire in such a way that they are less likely to communicate information to PMd.
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