Development and change of cortical field potentials during learning processes of visually initiated hand movements in...

Field potentials on the surface and at 2.5-3.0 mm depth in the cerebral cortex were recorded in various areas with chronically implanted electrodes and the potentials which preceded hand movements in response to a light stimulus were observed during the process of learning the skilled conditioned movement. A naive monkey had to lift a lever by wrist extension within duration of the light stimulus lasting for 900, 700 or 510 ms depending on the stage of the learning process. In addition to some responses in the striate gyrus, significant short-latency responses to the light stimulus appeared bilaterally in certain areas of the prefrontal and prestriate cortices at an early stage of learning in which the monkey still lifted the lever randomly, and they became gradually larger as the monkey was trained further. Short-latency responses were also often noted in the bilateral premotor cortices during an early stage of learning. When the monkey started to respond to the stimulus by the appropriate movement, early surface-positive (s-P), depth-negative (d-N) premovement potentials appeared in the forelimb motor cortex, and the responses in the premotor cortex increased in size. As the movement became faster and more skillful, late s-N, d-P premovement potentials, that are known to be mediated by the neocerebellum and superficial thalamo-cortical projections, emerged after the early s-P, d-N potentials and became more marked, larger and steeper in the forelimb motor cortex contralateral to the moving hand. All the premovement potentials in the different cortical areas thus developed into steady and constant states and remained so for many months thus maintaining their established patterns. Such successive appearances of premovement field potentials in various cortical areas were related to learning processes of the movement and the implication of these findings was discussed.