Cortico-muscular functional network: an exploration of cortico-muscular coupling in hand movements

Objective. The main objective of this research was to study cortico-muscular, intra-cortical, and inter-muscular coupling. Herein, we established a cortico-muscular functional network (CMFN) to assess the network differences associated with making a fist, opening the hand, and wrist flexion.Approach. We used transfer entropy (TE) to calculate the causality between electroencephalographic and electromyographic data and established the TE connection matrix. We then applied graph theory to analyze the clustering coefficient, global efficiency, and small-world attributes of the CMFN. We also used Relief-F to extract the features of the TE connection matrix of the beta2 band for the different hand movements and observed high accuracy when this feature was used for action recognition.Main results. We found that the CMFN of the three actions in the beta band had small-world attributes, among which the beta2 band's small-world was stronger. Moreover, we found that the extracted features were mainly concentrated in the left frontal area, left motor area, occipital lobe, and related muscles, suggesting that the CMFN could be used to assess the coupling differences between the cortex and the muscles that are associated with different hand movements. Overall, our results showed that the beta2 (21-35 Hz) wave is the main information carrier between the cortex and the muscles, and the CMFN can be used in the beta2 band to assess cortico-muscular coupling.Significance. Our study preliminarily explored the CMFN associated with hand movements, providing additional insights regarding the transmission of information between the cortex and the muscles, thereby laying a foundation for future rehabilitation therapy targeting pathological cortical areas in stroke patients.