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Neuromagnetic Cerebellar Activity Entrains to the Kinematics of Executed Finger Movements

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Abstract

This magnetoencephalography (MEG) study aims at characterizing the coupling between cerebellar activity and the kinematics of repetitive self-paced finger movements. Neuromagnetic signals were recorded in 11 right-handed healthy adults while they performed repetitive flexion–extensions of right-hand fingers at three different movement rates: slow (~ 1 Hz), medium (~ 2 Hz), and fast (~ 3 Hz). Right index finger acceleration was monitored with an accelerometer. Coherence analysis was used to index the coupling between right index finger acceleration and neuromagnetic signals. Dynamic imaging of coherent sources was used to locate coherent sources. Coupling directionality between primary sensorimotor (SM1), cerebellar, and accelerometer signals was assessed with renormalized partial directed coherence. Permutation-based statistics coupled with maximum statistic over the entire brain volume or restricted to the cerebellum were used. At all movement rates, maximum coherence peaked at SM1 cortex contralateral to finger movements at movement frequency (F0) and its first harmonic (F1). Significant (statistics restricted to the cerebellum) coherence consistently peaked at the right posterior lobe of the cerebellum at F0 with no influence of movement rate. Coupling between Acc and cerebellar signals was significantly stronger in the afferent than in the efferent direction with no effective contribution of cortico-cerebellar or cerebello-cortical pathways. This study demonstrates the existence of significant coupling between finger movement kinematics and neuromagnetic activity at the posterior cerebellar lobe ipsilateral to finger movement at F0. This coupling is mainly driven by spinocerebellar, presumably proprioceptive, afferences.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by research grants from the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS, Belgium; Grant references: J.0097.13F, J.0095.16F). Mathieu Bourguignon has been supported by the program Attract of Innoviris (Grant 2015-BB2B-10). Gilles Naeije is supported by a research grant of the Fonds Erasme (Brussels, Belgium). Xavier De Tiège is Postdoctoral Clinical Master Specialist at the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FRS-FNRS, Belgium). The MEG project at the CUB Hôpital Erasme is financially supported by the Fonds Erasme (Research Convention “Les Voies du Savoir”, Brussels, Belgium). Brice Marty also thanks Professor Stéphane Swillens at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB) for his support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire de Cartographie fonctionnelle du Cerveau, UNI–ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), 808 route de Lennik, 1070, Bruxelles, Belgium

    Brice Marty, V. Wens, M. Bourguignon, G. Naeije, S. Goldman & X. De Tiège

  2. Department of Functional Neuroimaging, Service of Nuclear Medicine, CUB Hôpital Erasme, Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium

    V. Wens, S. Goldman & X. De Tiège

  3. Laboratoire Cognition Langage et Développement, UNI–ULB Neuroscience Institute, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Brussels, Belgium

    M. Bourguignon

  4. Department of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering and Aalto NeuroImaging, Aalto University School of Science, Espoo, Finland

    V. Jousmäki

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  1. Brice Marty
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Correspondence to Brice Marty.

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Marty, B., Wens, V., Bourguignon, M. et al. Neuromagnetic Cerebellar Activity Entrains to the Kinematics of Executed Finger Movements. Cerebellum 17, 531–539 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12311-018-0943-4

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