Pre-movement activity of neurons in the parietal associative cortex of the cat during different types of voluntary movement

Khitrova-Orlova, T. V.; Sidyakin, V. G.; Kulichenko, A. M.; Павленко, В. Б.

doi:10.1007/bf02463050

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In the experimental work cited above on conscious decisionmaking by humans [72][73][74][75]97], an unconscious cortical 'readiness potential' was found to precede spontaneous (unconditioned) action by several hundred milliseconds, with subjects experiencing a conscious intention to move roughly midway between the two events-and being able, if rewarded, to make a decision to abort up to 200 ms before the movement. Similar pre-movement readiness potentials, differing in timing and degree of complexity, have been found in rats, cats and macaques [98][99][100], and presumably exist in many other mammals. By adapting the experimental procedures used on humans, it should be possible to determine whether any of these animals have a late error-detection mechanism capable of aborting a voluntary movement launched at the unconscious level.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Convergent? Minds? Some questions about mental evolution

Cartmill¹

2017

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ABSTRACT:In investigating convergent minds, we need to be sure that the things we are looking at are both minds and convergent. In determining whether a shared character state represents a convergence between two organisms, we must know the wider distribution and primitive state of that character so that we can map that character and its state transitions onto a phylogenetic tree. When we do this, some apparently primitive shared traits may prove to represent convergent losses of cognitive capacities. To avoid having to talk about the minds of plants and paramecia, we need to go beyond assessments of behaviorally defined cognition to ask questions about mind in the primary sense of the word, defined by the presence of mental events and consciousness. These phenomena depend upon the possession of brains of adequate size and centralized ontogeny and organization. They are probably limited to vertebrates. Recent discoveries suggest that consciousness is adaptively valuable as a late error detection mechanism in the initiation of action, and point to experimental techniques for assessing its presence or absence in nonhuman mammals.The title of this symposium is "Convergent Minds." I wish to raise some questions about both words in that title.For two things to qualify as convergent minds, they have to be (a) convergences and (b) minds. The first qualification is easier to evaluate than the second. The word "convergence" has a special technical meaning in evolutionary biology. For those who are used to thinking in phylogenetic terms, what follows may be obvious. But it may nevertheless be worth pointing out, because experience shows that even people who are very sophisticated biologists in other respects sometimes make mistakes in evolutionary thinking.Determining whether a particular resemblance between two species represents a convergence or not requires that we know how they fit into a larger phylogenetic picture -the tree of evolutionary relationships -and what the trait in question looked like in their last common ancestor. In general, a trait that was present in that ancestor cannot be a convergence between two of its descendants. This entails that (for instance) no mental properties that humans share with chimpanzees, our closet living relatives, can be All this has a bearing on the way we need to think about these issues. The socalled mirror test for self-awareness developed in 1970 by G. G. Gallup, Jr.[1] provides an example of why and how phylogeny matters. In this test, the experimental subjects are anesthetized and have a visible mark placed on their faces. Control animals receive a mark that is invisible but feels and smells the same. After recovering from anesthesia, each subject is presented with a mirror. If, upon seeing their reflection, the experimental subjects touch or otherwise clearly respond to the mark on their faces but the control subjects do not, the species passes the test.This test has been interpreted as an index of awareness of self, of one's own body as a thing. The meaning of the test...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 54%

Convergent? Minds? Some questions about mental evolution

Cartmill¹

2017

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“…The number of trials usually was from 15 to 30, and the bin width varied from 8 to 80 msec. Other details of techniques were described earlier [ 11,12 ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Activity of the parietal associative cortex neurons and aminergic brainstem neurons at the performance of a voluntary movement in cats

Sidyakin¹,

Павленко²,

Kulichenko³

1998

Neurophysiology

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Activity of 98 neurons of the parietal associative cortex (PAC) and 189 supposedly aminergic brainstem neurons (dopaminergic in the substantia nigra pars compacta, noradrenergic in the /ocus ogeru/eus region, and serotonergic in the raphe nuclei) was recorded in awake cats. The animals were trained to perform a voluntary movement (pressing a pedal) not earlier than at a certain prefixed time moment. More than half of the recorded units modified their activity before the movement initiation. The PAC neurons responded mostly within the interval of planning of the movement, while reactions of aminergic neurons were observed in the course of its initiation, which probably provides facilitation of the responses of cortical neurons. The pattern of responses was rather specific for each of the studied neuronal populations.

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Integration of Motor and Visual Information in the Parietal Area 5 During Locomotion

Beloozerova

Sirota

2003

Journal of Neurophysiology

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The parietal cortex receives both visual- and motor-related information and is believed to be one of the sites of visuo-motor coordination. This study for the first time characterizes integration of visual and motor information in activity of neurons of parietal area 5 during locomotion under conditions that require visuo-motor coordination. The activity of neurons was recorded in cats during walking on a flat surface-a task with no visuo-motor coordination required (flat locomotion), walking along a horizontal ladder or a series of barriers-a task requiring visuo-motor coordination for an accurate foot placement on surface that is heterogeneous along the direction of progression (ladder and barriers locomotion), and walking along a narrow pathway-a task requiring visuo-motor coordination on surface homogeneous along the direction of progression (narrow locomotion). During flat locomotion, activity of 66% of the neurons was modulated in rhythm of stepping, usually with one peak per cycle. During ladder and barrier locomotion, the proportion of rhythmically active neurons significantly increased, their modulation became stronger, and the majority of neurons had two peaks of activity per cycle. During narrow locomotion, however, the activity of neurons was similar to that during flat locomotion. We concluded that, during locomotion, parietal area 5 integrates two types of information: signals about the activity of basic locomotion mechanisms and signals about heterogeneity of the surface along the direction of progression. We describe here the modes of integration of these two types of information during locomotion.

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Pre-movement activity of neurons in the parietal associative cortex of the cat during different types of voluntary movement

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Convergent? Minds? Some questions about mental evolution

Convergent? Minds? Some questions about mental evolution

Activity of the parietal associative cortex neurons and aminergic brainstem neurons at the performance of a voluntary movement in cats

Integration of Motor and Visual Information in the Parietal Area 5 During Locomotion

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