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A New View on Real Actions: Neural Mechanisms of Visuo-Motor Transformations
BraIn Action aimes to provide a better understanding of the neural networks underlying hand actions
WHY ACTIONS?
WHY ACTIONS?
Actions are essential to satisfy our basic needs, and they are also the only way we have to affect the world around us.
The main objective of BraIn Action is aimed to use neuroimaging and neurostimulation techniques to investigate whether the Early Visual Cortex (EVC), a brain region known to process visual information, plays a role in planning actions even when vision is not available.
Question one
Question one
Can the activity pattern in the EVC be used to decode action intention even in absence of visual information? Does action intention modulate the representation of object features in the EVC?
Yes, the activity pattern in the EVC can be used to decode action intention before we start to move, and regardless of whether we keep our eyes open or closed.
Link to publication.
Question two
Question two
Does action planning enhance the functional connections between the Early Visual Cortex and the rest of the brain before we start to move?
Yes, there are task-related functional connections between the EVC and somatosensory and motor areas when we are planning an action.
Links to publication 1 and publication 2.
Question three
Question three
Could it just be imagery?
Motor imagery can be a powerful tool as it helps professional athletes improve their performance, and allows moving assistive devices by imagining the goal of the effector.
Do hand actions and imagery tasks have a shared neural representation for planning and imagining hand movements?
The neural representations of action planning and motor imagery overlap in the occipital, parietal and frontal cortex. However, only the parietal cortex shows a representation of action that generalizes between planning and imagining a movement.
Link to publication.
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