Abstract
The study of the movement related brain potentials (MRPBs) needs accurate technical approaches to disentangle the specific patterns of bran activity during the preparation and execution of movements. During the last forty years, synchronizing the electromyographic activation (EMG) of the muscle with electrophysiological recordings (EEG) has been commonly ussed for these purposes. However, new clinical approaches in the study of motor diseases and rehabilitation suggest the demand of new paradigms that might go further into the study of the brain activity associated with the kinematics of movements. As a response to this call, we have used a 3-D hand-tracking system with the aim to record continuously the position of an ultrasonic sender attached to the hand during the performance of multi-joint self-paced movements. We synchronized time-series of position and velocity of the sender with the EEG recordings, obtaining specific patterns of brain activity as a function of the fluctuations of the kinematics during natural movement performance. Additionally, the distribution of the brain activity during the preparation and execution phases of movements was similar that reported previously using the EMG, suggesting the validity of our technique. We claim that this paradigm could be usable in patients because of its simplicity and the potential knowledge that can be extracted from clinical protocols.
Highlights
Over the lasts 40 years, the electrophysiological brain activity (EEG) associated with the preparation and execution of movements has been widely described
The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the association between the fluctuation of the time series of velocity during the performance of multi-joint reaching movements and (i) the components of the movementrelated brain potentials (MRBPs) and (ii) the ERD/S in the mu and beta-bands
We found three amplitude-peaks in the components of the MRBPs corresponding to specific time intervals within the preparation and execution phases of movements
Summary
Over the lasts 40 years, the electrophysiological brain activity (EEG) associated with the preparation and execution of movements has been widely described. In order to give a more fine-grained characterization of the neural sources of these potentials and the associated oscillatory brain activity, several studies have used the Laplacian transformed activity of the EEG obtaining the current source density (CSD) waveforms (Nunez, 2002; Carbonnell et al, 2004; Kayser et al, 2010; Meckler et al, 2010; Tenke and Kayser, 2012) This method allows evaluating the topographical distribution of the brain activity in terms of current sources and sinks through the scalp (Kayser and Tenke, 2006). It has been proposed that this transformation is especially useful in localizing the sources of activity in sensorimotor tasks (Tenke and Kayser, 2012)
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