Motor cortical beta bursts for movement planning and evaluation: Mechanisms, functional roles, and development

Project Information

MOBETA

Grant agreement ID: 864550

DOI

10.3030/864550

Project closed

EC signature date 2 March 2020

Start date 1 July 2020

End date 30 June 2026

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 988 189,00

EU contribution

€ 1 988 189,00

Coordinated by

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 3 - MOBETA (Motor cortical beta bursts for movement planning and evaluation: Mechanisms, functional roles, and development)

Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Everday actions require combining sensory information from the world and our bodies, coordinating the movement of many muscles, and learning from their outcomes. Neural activity in the motor cortex, especially rhthymic activity in the beta frequency range (13 to 30 Hz), is closely linked to movement, but is not yet known how. We have recently learned that beta activity actually occurs in short bursts, and that the timing and rate of these bursts is more closely linked to movement than average beta activity. This project aims to determine how these bursts of beta activity are generated, how they are involved in planning and learning from movements, and how they develop in infants. These results will be important for creating personalized, online treatments for brain disorders that are caused by abnormal beta activity, and creating brain-machine-interfaces for people who are paralyzed or have other movement difficulties.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Since the beginning of the project, we have finished analyzing existing magnetoencephalography (MEG) data using a new type of analysis and a computational model. We found that beta bursts are predominately caused by inputs to different layers in the motor cortex.

We then ran an experiment using MEG with 38 subjects performing reaching movements using a joystick. We have found so far that beta bursts occur with a wide range of waveform shapes and that bursts with different shapes contribute different to classically described changes in beta activity before and after movement. We have also found that fewer beta bursts occur over time when people are learning from the results of their reaching movements, and then increase again when they are faced with a new environment.

We used a computational model to show that it can generate bursts with different waveform shapes, but not the ones we observed in our experimental data. We are therefore now analyzing neural recordings from monkeys in order to determine how to update the model to account for the burst shapes we observed. We found so far that beta bursts in the monkey brain look similar to those we see in the human brain, and are caused by different patterns activity in specific layers of the cortex. We are able to reproduce these burst shapes in the model by adding additional inputs from other brain regions. This suggests that different types of beta bursts in motor cortex may indicate different processes, such as motor planning and learning, based on inputs to the motor cortex from different brain regions.

We have also developed a new method of analyzing data from long-term neural recordings. This will allow us to track how changes in beta bursts correspond to changes in neural activity throughout learning a new motor skill.

We have analyzed electroencephalography (EEG) data from infants and shown that beta bursts also occur in 9-month- and 12-month-old infants, and that they have similar shapes to adult beta bursts, but they happen in a slightly lower frequency range.

Finally, we have recently received ethical approval for running the remaining adult MEG experiment aimed at determining how beta bursts are involved in reaching and grasping movements. We are currently finalizing the experimental setup and plan to begin the experiment in February. We have also received ethical approval for running the infant EEG/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) experiment aimed at understanding which brain regions contribute to beta burst activity, and how they are related to motor development. We have recently begun collecting data for this experiment (6 infants so far).

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Beta bursts are widely treated as all being the same thing. We have shown that there are different types of beta bursts, and they may be involved in different motor processes such as planning and learning. Not much is known about the development of beta activity, but we have shown that beta bursts also occur in the infant brain, and are linked to movement, but happen at a lower peak frequency. We expect to determine which types of bursts are related to which motor processes, what brain regions contribute these different burst types, and how beta bursts in the infant brain affect the development of motor skills.

Bursts with different shapes behave differently before and after a movement.