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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2023.07.21.550067

Human primary motor cortex indexes the onset of subjective intention in brain-machine-interface mediated actions

Noel, J.-P.·Bockbrader, M.·Colachis, S.·Solca, M.·Orepic, P.·Ganzer, P.·Haggard, P.·Rezai, A.·Blanke, O.·Serino, A.
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Abstract

Self-initiated behavior is accompanied by the experience of willing our actions. Here, we leverage the unique opportunity to examine the full intentional chain - from will (W) to action (A) to environmental effects (E) - in a tetraplegic person fitted with a primary motor cortex (M1) brain machine interface (BMI) generating hand movements via neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES). This combined BMI-NMES approach allowed us to selectively manipulate each element of the intentional chain (W, A, and E) while performing extra-cellular recordings and probing subjective experience. Our results reveal single-cell, multi-unit, and population-level dynamics in human M1 that encode W and may predict its subjective onset. Further, we show that the proficiency of a neural decoder in M1 reflects the degree of W-A binding, tracking the participants subjective experience of intention in (near) real time. These results point to M1 as a critical node in forming the subjective experience of intention and demonstrate the relevance of intention-related signals for translational neuroprosthetics.

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Noel, J.-P., Bockbrader, M., Colachis, S., Solca, M., Orepic, P., Ganzer, P., Haggard, P., Rezai, A., Blanke, O., Serino, A.. 2023-07-25. Human primary motor cortex indexes the onset of subjective intention in brain-machine-interface mediated actions. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.07.21.550067

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