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The motor cortex is the region of the cerebral cortex including the primary motor, premotor and supplementary motor cortices that is responsible for planning and executing actions.
Using single-nucleus RNA sequencing data from patients with sporadic amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) cortices, the authors find that higher expression of ALS risk genes is accompanied by upregulation of stress responses in groups of extratelencephalic neurons. Analyses of glial nuclei revealed a downregulation of myelination genes in oligodendrocytes and upregulation of reactive state genes in microglia.
Understanding the link between multiple movement elements and sequence-related responses in the motor cortex remains elusive. This study reveals a multiplicative joint coding mechanism during motor preparation which transfers to additive during execution, potentially explaining the linear readout of elemental movements.
Handedness is thought to be associated with brain asymmetry. Here, the authors show distinct brain functional connectivity associated with left- vs. right-handed children, shedding light on early neural organization and its relationship with handedness.
Neuronal activity in the secondary motor cortex of mice engaged in a foraging task simultaneously represents multiple alternative decision-making strategies.
In their flagship paper, the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) describes the classification and analysis of cell types in the mammalian primary motor cortex.
Two papers published in June 2021 used a two-photon microscope or one-photon miniature microscope to interrogate the motor cortex in behaving macaque monkeys. The imaging was performed over several months, and the direction of natural arm reaching was decoded from the population activity.