Abstract
Improving performance in motor skill acquisition is proposed to be supported by tuning of neural networks. To address this issue we investigated changes of phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling (paCFC) in neuronal networks during motor performance improvement. We recorded intracranially from subdural electrodes (electrocorticogram; ECoG) from 6 patients who learned 3 distinct motor tasks requiring coordination of finger movements with an external cue (serial response task, auditory motor coordination task, go/no-go). Performance improved in all subjects and all tasks during the first block and plateaued in subsequent blocks. Performance improvement was paralled by increasing neural changes in the trial-to-trial paCFC between theta (; 4–8 Hz) phase and high gamma (HG; 80–180 Hz) amplitude. Electrodes showing this covariation pattern (Pearson's r ranging up to .45) were located contralateral to the limb performing the task and were observed predominantly in motor brain regions. We observed stable paCFC when task performance asymptoted. Our results indicate that motor performance improvement is accompanied by adjustments in the dynamics and topology of neuronal network interactions in the and HG range. The location of the involved electrodes suggests that oscillatory dynamics in motor cortices support performance improvement with practice.
Highlights
Phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling of oscillations in different frequency bands has been proposed as an effective mechanism to form functional networks that recruit local neuronal populations across a global spatial scale [1,2,3,4]
We show that Phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling (paCFC) in intracranial subdural recordings between h (4–8 Hz) and high gamma (HG) (80–180 Hz) in the human cortex tracks level of motor performance across different motor tasks
Phase amplitude cross frequency coupling We investigated potential links between paCFC and motor performance in six subjects each performing one of three repetitive motor tasks described
Summary
Phase-amplitude cross-frequency coupling (paCFC) of oscillations in different frequency bands has been proposed as an effective mechanism to form functional networks that recruit local neuronal populations across a global spatial scale [1,2,3,4]. During paCFC amplitudes of higher frequency oscillations, reflecting local cortical processing, are modulated by the phase of low frequency oscillations [8,9,10,11,12]. This mechanism has been proposed to engage and coordinate local processing modules across spatially distributed brain areas supporting cognition and motor performance [4,9,13,14,15,16,17].Further support for this proposal comes from recent clinical studies linking altered paCFC to debilitating psychiatric and motor disorders [18,19,20,21]. Tort and colleagues [6] examined the dynamic modification of functional relations between performance and CFC in rat hippocampus and found coupling strength between h and gamma (c: 25–100 Hz) correlated with maze learning
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