Dataset Information

The Functional Role of Thalamocortical Coupling in the Human Motor Network.

ABSTRACT: The amplitude of high broadband activity in human cortical field potentials indicates local processing and has repeatedly been shown to reflect motor control in the primary motor cortex. In a group of male and female subjects affected by essential tremor and undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery, ventral intermediate nucleus low-frequency oscillations (<30 Hz) entrain the corticomotor high broadband activity (>40 Hz) during rest, relinquishing that role during movement execution. This finding suggests that there is significant cross-rhythm communication between thalamocortical regions, and motor behavior corresponds to changes in thalamocortical phase-amplitude coupling profiles. Herein, we demonstrate that thalamocortical coupling is a crucial mechanism for gating motor behavior.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT We demonstrate, for the first time, how thalamocortical coupling is mediating movement execution in humans. We show how the low-frequency oscillation from the ventral intermediate nucleus, known as the motor nucleus of the thalamus, entrains the excitability of the primary motor cortex, as reflected by the phase-amplitude coupling between the two regions. We show that thalamocortical phase-amplitude coupling is a manifestation of a gating mechanism for movement execution mediated by the thalamus. These findings highlight the importance of incorporating cross-frequency relationship in models of motor behavior; and given the spatial specificity of this mechanism, this work could be used to improve functional targeting during surgical implantations in subcortical regions.

SUBMITTER: Opri E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6786826 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Functional Role of Thalamocortical Coupling in the Human Motor Network.

Opri Enrico E Cernera Stephanie S Okun Michael S MS Foote Kelly D KD Gunduz Aysegul A

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 20190830 41

The amplitude of high broadband activity in human cortical field potentials indicates local processing and has repeatedly been shown to reflect motor control in the primary motor cortex. In a group of male and female subjects affected by essential tremor and undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery, ventral intermediate nucleus low-frequency oscillations (<30 Hz) entrain the corticomotor high broadband activity (>40 Hz) during rest, relinquishing that role during movement execution. This findin ...[more]

PMID: 31471470

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Project description:Rolandic epilepsy (RE) is the most common focal, idiopathic, developmental epilepsy, characterized by a transient period of sleep-potentiated seizures and epileptiform discharges in the inferior Rolandic cortex during childhood. The cause of RE remains unknown but converging evidence has identified abnormalities in the Rolandic thalamocortical circuit. To better localize this transient disease, we evaluated Rolandic thalamocortical functional and structural connectivity in the sensory and motor circuits separately during the symptomatic and asymptomatic phases of this disease. We collected high resolution structural, diffusion, and resting state functional MRI data in a prospective cohort of children with active RE (n = 17), resolved RE (n = 21), and controls (n = 33). We then computed the functional and structural connectivity between the inferior Rolandic cortex and the ventrolateral (VL) nucleus of the thalamus (efferent pathway) and the ventroposterolateral (VPL) nucleus of the thalamus (afferent pathway) across development in children with active, resolved RE and controls. We compared connectivity with age in each group using linear mixed-effects models. We found that children with active RE have increasing thalamocortical functional connectivity between the VL thalamus and inferior motor cortex with age (p = 0.022) that is not observed in controls or resolved RE. In contrast, children with resolved RE have increasing thalamocortical structural connectivity between the VL nucleus and the inferior motor cortex with age (p = 0.025) that is not observed in controls or active RE. No relationships were identified between VPL nuclei and the inferior sensory cortex with age in any group. These findings localize the functional and structural thalamocortical circuit disruption in RE to the efferent thalamocortical motor pathway. Further work is required to determine how these circuit abnormalities contribute to the emergence and resolution of symptoms in this developmental disease.

Dataset Information

The Functional Role of Thalamocortical Coupling in the Human Motor Network.

Publications

The Functional Role of Thalamocortical Coupling in the Human Motor Network.

Similar Datasets

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