Neural population dynamics in human motor cortex during movements in people with ALS

• Published in: eLife Vol. 4; p. e07436
• Main Authors: Pandarinath, Chethan, Gilja, Vikash, Blabe, Christine H, Nuyujukian, Paul, Sarma, Anish A, Sorice, Brittany L, Eskandar, Emad N, Hochberg, Leigh R, Henderson, Jaimie M, Shenoy, Krishna V
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England eLife Sciences Publications Ltd 23.06.2015; eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
• Subjects: Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - pathology; Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis - physiopathology; Clinical trials; computational neuroscience; Cortex (motor); Cortex (temporal); dynamical system; Dynamical systems; Eigenvalues; Human Biology and Medicine; Humans; Models, Neurological; motor control; motor cortex; Motor Cortex - physiology; Movement; Neural Pathways - physiology; Neurons - physiology; Neuroscience; Neurosciences; Neurosurgery; Population; Principal components analysis; Short Report; United States > US; human biology; dynamical systems; motor cortex; neuroscience; medicine; computational neuroscience; human; motor control
• ISSN: 2050-084X; 2050-084X
• DOI: 10.7554/eLife.07436

The prevailing view of motor cortex holds that motor cortical neural activity represents muscle or movement parameters. However, recent studies in non-human primates have shown that neural activity does not simply represent muscle or movement parameters; instead, its temporal structure is well-described by a dynamical system where activity during movement evolves lawfully from an initial pre-movement state. In this study, we analyze neuronal ensemble activity in motor cortex in two clinical trial participants diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). We find that activity in human motor cortex has similar dynamical structure to that of non-human primates, indicating that human motor cortex contains a similar underlying dynamical system for movement generation.