The dorsal premotor cortex orchestrates concurrent speech and fingertapping movements

Abstract

Human speech and hand use both involve highly specialized complex movement patterns. Whereas previous studies in detail characterized the cortical motor systems mediating speech and finger movements, the network that provides coordination of concurrent speech and hand movements so far is unknown. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the present study investigated differential cortical networks devoted to speech or fingertapping, and regions mediating integration of these complex movement patterns involving different effectors. The conjunction contrasts revealing regions activated both during sole fingertapping and sole repetitive articulation or reading aloud showed contralateral regions at the border of ventral and dorsal motor cortex. In contrast, the analyses revealing regions showing a higher level of fMRI activation for concurrent movements of both effectors compared with sole hand movements or repetitive articulation or reading aloud showed distinct premotor activations, which were situated dorsal and caudal to the areas activated across speech and fingertapping tasks. These results indicate that the premotor cortex (PMC) subserves coordination of concurrent speech with hand movements. This integrative motor region is not identical with the area that shows overlapping activations for speech and fingertapping. Thus, concurrent performance of these complex movement patterns involving different effectors requires, in addition to somatotopic motor cortex activation, orchestration subserved by a distinct PMC area.

Temporal and Motor Representation of Rhythm in Fronto-Parietal Cortical Areas: An fMRI Study

“…There are a few studies that investigated the effector-independent activations related to rhythm tapping [6,7,8]. The study by Meister et al reported brain activations during tapping or articulation at a constant rate, and that by Bengtsson et al described activations during synchronization and reproduction of well-trained rhythmic sequences.…”

Functional connectivity associated with hand shape generation: Imitating novel hand postures and pantomiming tool grips challenge different nodes of a shared neural network

“…Their function has been interpreted in terms of goaldirected planning, planning of hand movements, and adequate sequencing of motor commands respectively (Buxbaum et al, 2006;Davare et al, 2010;Grafton et al, 1998;Lewis, 2006;Makuuchi et al, 2012;Meister et al, 2009;Vingerhoets et al, 2013). The focus of vPMC of matching hand posture configurations in accordance to visual demands is nicely demonstrated by its close correspondence with inferior parietal and extrastriate regions, whereas the focus of DLPFC and dPMC on the planning of motor control is underlined by its strong reciprocal connections (see Figure 4B).…”

Multimodal integration of spontaneously produced representational co-speech gestures: an fMRI study

“…As part of the dorsal route for speech perception proposed by Hickok and Poeppel (2007), overlapping representations of the manual and speech articulators (e.g. Meister, Buelte, Staedtgen, Boroojerdi, & Sparing, 2009) may enable dorsal premotor cortex to participate in audiovisual and sensorimotor integration (Josse et al 2012). For example, premotor cortex, along with the planum temporale and STG, are thought to form a network that supports sensorimotor integration for error detection and correction by providing auditory feedback during speech production (Hickok, Houde, & Rong, 2011; Tourville, Reilly, & Guenther, 2008).…”