Cell Reports
Volume 18, Issue 7, 14 February 2017, Pages 1619-1626
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Report
Rapid Automatic Motor Encoding of Competing Reach Options

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.celrep.2017.01.049Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Previous work suggests that competing movements are prepared for potential targets

  • We dissociated, unbeknownst to subjects, the motor versus visual directions of targets

  • Movement direction toward potential targets reflects a rapid coding of reach paths

  • This suggests an automatic conversion of action options into associated movements

Summary

Mounting neural evidence suggests that, in situations in which there are multiple potential targets for action, the brain prepares, in parallel, competing movements associated with these targets, prior to implementing one of them. Central to this interpretation is the idea that competing viewed targets, prior to selection, are rapidly and automatically transformed into corresponding motor representations. Here, by applying target-specific, gradual visuomotor rotations and dissociating, unbeknownst to participants, the visual direction of potential targets from the direction of the movements required to reach the same targets, we provide direct evidence for this provocative idea. Our results offer strong empirical support for theories suggesting that competing action options are automatically represented in terms of the movements required to attain them. The rapid motor encoding of potential targets may support the fast optimization of motor costs under conditions of target uncertainty and allow the motor system to inform decisions about target selection.

Keywords

action
decision making
motor planning
parallel encoding
reaching
sensorimotor
visuomotor adaptation

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