TY - JOUR T1 - A synergy-based hand control is encoded in human motor cortical areas JF - eLIFE Y1 - 2016 A1 - A. Leo A1 - G. Handjaras A1 - M. Bianchi A1 - H. Marino A1 - M Gabiccini A1 - Guidi, A. A1 - E. P. Scilingo A1 - P. Pietrini A1 - A. Bicchi A1 - M. Santello A1 - E. Ricciardi AB -

How the human brain controls hand movements to carry out different tasks is still debated. The concept of synergy has been proposed to indicate functional modules that may simplify the control of hand postures by simultaneously recruiting sets of muscles and joints. However, whether and to what extent synergic hand postures are encoded as such at a cortical level remains unknown. Here, we combined kinematic, electromyography, and brain activity measures obtained by functional magnetic resonance imaging while subjects performed a variety of movements towards virtual objects. Hand postural information, encoded through kinematic synergies, were represented in cortical areas devoted to hand motor control and successfully discriminated individual grasping movements, significantly outperforming alternative somatotopic or muscle-based models. Importantly, hand postural synergies were predicted by neural activation patterns within primary motor cortex. These findings support a novel cortical organization for hand movement control and open potential applications for brain-computer interfaces and neuroprostheses.

UR - http://elifesciences.org/content/5/e13420v2 ER -