Regulation of specific abnormal calcium signals in the hippocampal CA1 and primary cortex M1 alleviates the progression of temporal lobe epilepsy

Temporal lobe epilepsy is a multifactorial neurological dysfunction syndrome that is refractory,resistant to antiepileptic drugs,and has a high recurrence rate.The pathogenesis of temporal lobe epilepsy is complex and is not fully understood.Intracellular calcium dynamics have been implicated in temporal lobe epilepsy.However,the effect of fluctuating calcium activity in CA1 pyramidal neurons on temporal lobe epilepsy is unknown,and no longitudinal studies have investigated calcium activity in pyramidal neurons in the hippocampal CA1 and primary motor cortex M1 of freely moving mice.In this study,we used a multichannel fiber photometry system to continuously record calcium signals in CA1 and M1 during the temporal lobe epilepsy process.We found that calcium signals varied according to the grade of temporal lobe epilepsy episodes.In particular,cortical spreading depression,which has recently been frequently used to represent the continuously and substantially increased calcium signals,was found to correspond to complex and severe behavioral characteristics of temporal lobe epilepsy ranging from gradeⅡto gradeⅤ.However,vigorous calcium oscillations and highly synchronized calcium signals in CA1 and M1 were strongly related to convulsive motor seizures.Chemogenetic inhibition of pyramidal neurons in CA1 significantly attenuated the amplitudes of the calcium signals corresponding to gradeⅠepisodes.In addition,the latency of cortical spreading depression was prolonged,and the above-mentioned abnormal calcium signals in CA1 and M1 were also significantly reduced.Intriguingly,it was possible to rescue the altered intracellular calcium dynamics.Via simultaneous analysis of calcium signals and epileptic behaviors,we found that the progression of temporal lobe epilepsy was alleviated when specific calcium signals were reduced,and that the end-point behaviors of temporal lobe epilepsy were improved.Our results indicate that the calcium dynamic between CA1 and M1 may reflect specific epileptic behaviors corresponding to different grades.Furthermore,the selective regulation of abnormal calcium signals in CA1 pyramidal neurons appears to effectively alleviate temporal lobe epilepsy,thereby providing a potential molecular mechanism for a new temporal lobe epilepsy diagnosis and treatment strategy.

Morphological disruption and visual tuning alterations in the primary visual cortex in glaucoma(DBA/2J)mice

Glaucoma is a leading cause of irreve rsible blindness wo rldwide,and previous studies have shown that,in addition to affecting the eyes,it also causes abnormalities in the brain.However,it is not yet clear how the primary visual cortex(V1)is altered in glaucoma.This study used DBA/2J mice as a model for spontaneous secondary glaucoma.The aim of the study was to compare the electrophysiological and histomorphological chara cteristics of neurons in the V1between 9-month-old DBA/2J mice and age-matched C57BL/6J mice.We conducted single-unit recordings in the V1 of light-anesthetized mice to measure the visually induced responses,including single-unit spiking and gamma band oscillations.The morphology of layerⅡ/Ⅲneurons was determined by neuronal nuclear antigen staining and Nissl staining of brain tissue sections.Eighty-seven neurons from eight DBA/2J mice and eighty-one neurons from eight C57BL/6J mice were examined.Compared with the C57BL/6J group,V1 neurons in the DBA/2J group exhibited weaker visual tuning and impaired spatial summation.Moreove r,fewer neuro ns were observed in the V1 of DBA/2J mice compared with C57BL/6J mice.These findings suggest that DBA/2J mice have fewer neurons in the VI compared with C57BL/6J mice,and that these neurons have impaired visual tuning.Our findings provide a better understanding of the pathological changes that occur in V1 neuron function and morphology in the DBA/2J mouse model.This study might offer some innovative perspectives regarding the treatment of glaucoma.

Age-related Changes of Glu/GABA Expression in the Primary Visual Cortex of Cat

Recent studies show that a reduced effect of inhibitory transmitter system in the visual cortex may underlie aged visual function degradation. Whether excitatory transmitter system changes with age and hence affects intracortical excitation-inhibition balance is not clear. To explore this issue, we used Nissl staining and immunohistochemical methods as well as Image-Pro Express software to examine the density of Nissl-stained neurons, Glutamie acid-immunoreactive （Glu-IR） neurons and T-Aminobutyric acid-immunoreactive （GABA-IR） neurons in the primary visual cortex of young adult and aged cats. The results showed that there was no significant difference in the density of Nissl-stained neurons between young and old cats （2〉0.05）. However, the density of Glu-IR neurons and GABA-IR neurons in the primary visual cortex of aged cats was significantly lower than that of young ones （P〈0.01）. The ratio between Glu-IR neurons and GABA-IR neurons was significantly increased in old cats compared to that in young adult ones （P〈0.01）. These results indicated that the effect of excitatory transmitter system in the old visual cortex was increased relative to the inhibitory transmitter system, which might cause an imbalance between cortical excitation and inhibition and might be an important factor mediating the visual function decline during aging.

Altered intrinsic functional connectivity of the primary visual cortex in youth patients with comitant exotropia: a resting state fMRI study

AIM： To evaluate the differences in the functional connectivity（FC） of the primary visual cortex（V1） between the youth comitant exotropia（CE） patients and health subjects using resting functional magnetic resonance imaging（f MRI） data.METHODS： Totally, 32 CEs（25 males and 7 females） and 32 healthy control subjects（HCs）（25 males and 7 females） were enrolled in the study and underwent the MRI scanning. Two-sample t-test was used to examine differences in FC maps between the CE patients and HCs. RESULTS： The CE patients showed significantly less FC between the left brodmann area（BA17） and left lingual gyrus/cerebellum posterior lobe, right middle occipital gyrus, left precentral gyrus/postcentral gyrus and right inferior parietal lobule/postcentral gyrus. Meanwhile, CE patients showed significantly less FC between right BA17 and right middle occipital gyrus（BA19, 37）.CONCLUSION： Our findings show that CE involves abnormal FC in primary visual cortex in many regions, which may underlie the pathologic mechanism of impaired fusion and stereoscopic vision in CEs.

Decoding brain responses to pixelized images in the primary visual cortex: implications for visual cortical prostheses

Visual cortical prostheses have the potential to restore partial vision. Still limited by the low-resolution visual percepts provided by visual cortical prostheses, implant wearers can currently only ＂see＂ pixelized images, and how to obtain the specific brain responses to different pixelized images in the primary visual cortex（the implant area） is still unknown. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment on normal human participants to investigate the brain activation patterns in response to 18 different pixelized images. There were 100 voxels in the brain activation pattern that were selected from the primary visual cortex, and voxel size was 4 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm. Multi-voxel pattern analysis was used to test if these 18 different brain activation patterns were specific. We chose a Linear Support Vector Machine（LSVM） as the classifier in this study. The results showed that the classification accuracies of different brain activation patterns were significantly above chance level, which suggests that the classifier can successfully distinguish the brain activation patterns. Our results suggest that the specific brain activation patterns to different pixelized images can be obtained in the primary visual cortex using a 4 mm × 4 mm × 4 mm voxel size and a 100-voxel pattern.

Correlation between primary motor cortex neural activity and fingertip force following transcranial magnetic stimulation

A better understanding of the neural mechanisms of finger-force regulation can help to explain the relationship between the central nervous system and nerve-muscle force, as well as assist in motor functional rehabilitation and the development robot hand designs. In the present study, 11 healthy volunteers performed a different target force-tracking task, which involved the index finger alone, index and middle finger together, and the combination of four fingers （i.e., index, middle, ring, and little）. The target force trace corresponded to 3 levels of 20% maximal voluntary changes （MVC）, 30% MVC, and 40% MVC in 20 seconds. In the test, an unexpected single 120% motor threshold transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied to the primary motor cortex （M1） during force tracking. Results revealed that peak force changes increased with increasing background force and the number of involved task fingers. These results demonstrate that M1 neural activities correlate with finger-force production, and M1 plays a role in finger-force control. Moreover, different neuronal networks were required for different finger patterns; a complicated task required multi-finger combinations and a complicated neuronal network comprised a large number of neurons.

AB072.Functional impact of the lateral posterior nucleus on the mouse primary visual cortex

Background:Information about the visual world is processed by an ensemble of cortical visual areas,which follow a hierarchical organization.The primary visual cortex(V1)first receives most of this information through the lateral geniculate nucleus(LGN),before being conveyed to higher-order cortical areas.Aside from this connectional route,there is also a complex network of bilateral connections between areas of the visual cortex and the pulvinar,considered as the largest extrageniculate visual thalamic nucleus.Despite an increasing number of studies on pulvinar,the exact function of this thalamic complex remains unknown.In this study,we investigated the functional impact of the lateral posterior(LP)nucleus,the homologue of the primate pulvinar,on the activity of neurons in the primary visual cortex in mice using optogenetic stimulation.Methods:A channel rhodopsin-2 gene-carrying viral vector(AAV5.CaMKII.hChR2-eYFP.WPRE)was injected into the LP of wild-type(C57BL/6)mice.Extracellular recordings of the activity of V1 neurons were carried out using 16-and 32-channel silicon probes.The stimulation of LP was achieved with light pulses(470 nm,20 pulse trains of 5 ms each at 10 Hz)delivered by a 4-channel optrode,which also recorded the thalamic activity.Visual stimuli consisted on drifting sinewave gratings of varying parameters(direction,contrast,spatial or temporal frequency and size).Results:Our preliminary data shows that LP stimulation performed in conjunction with the visual stimulation decreases the amplitude of neuronal responses up to 50%.To date,results indicate that this inhibitory effect is only observed in neurons in the infragranular layers.The response profiles of V1 neurons to size-increasing stimuli were also affected.Conclusions:These findings suggest that the pulvinar nucleus can exert layer-dependent contextual modulation on the activity of neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex.

AB009.Learning dynamics in a neural network model of the primary visual cortex

Background:The primary visual cortex(V1)is a key component of the visual system that builds some of the first levels of coherent visual representations from sparse visual inputs.While the study of its dynamics has been the focus of many computational models for the past years,there is still relatively few research works that put an emphasis on both synaptic plasticity in V1 and biorealism in the context of learning visual inputs.Here,we present a recurrent spiking neural network that is capable of spike timing dependent plasticity(STDP)and we demonstrate its capacity to discriminate spatio-temporal orientation patterns in noisy natural images.Methods:A two stage model was developed.First,natural images flux(be it videos/gratings/camera)were converted into spikes,using a difference of gaussians(DOG)approach.This transformation approximates the retina-lateral geniculate nucleus(LGN)organization.Secondly,a spiking neural network was build using PyNN simulator,mimicking cortical neurons dynamics and plasticity,as well as V1 topology.This network was then fed with spikes generated by the first model and its ability to build visual representations was assessed using control gratings inputs.Results:The neural network exhibited several interesting properties.After a short period of learning,it was capable of learning multiples orientations and reducing noise in such learned feature,compared to the inputs.These learned features were stable even after increasing the noise in inputs and were found to not only encoding the spatial properties of the input,but also its temporal aspects(i.e.,the time of each grating presentation Conclusions:Our work shows that topological structuring of the cortical neural networks,combined with simple plasticity rules,are sufficient to drive strong learning dynamics of natural images properties.This computational model fits many properties found in the literature and provides some theoritical explanations for the shape of tuning curve of certain layers of V1.Further investigations are now conducted to validate its properties against the neuronal responses of rodents,using identical visual stimuli.

In vivo imaging reveals a synchronized correlation among neurotransmitter dynamics during propofol and sevoflurane anesthesia

General anesthesia is widely applied in clinical practice.However,the precise mechanism of loss of consciousness induced by general anesthetics remains unknown.Here,we measured the dynamics of five neurotransmitters,includingγ-aminobutyric acid,glutamate,norepinephrine,acetylcholine,and dopamine,in the medial prefrontal cortex and primary visual cortex of C57BL/6 mice through in vivo fiber photometry and genetically encoded neurotransmitter sensors under anesthesia to reveal the mechanism of general anesthesia from a neurotransmitter perspective.Results revealed that the concentrations of γ-aminobutyric acid,glutamate,norepinephrine,and acetylcholine increased in the cortex during propofol-induced loss of consciousness.Dopamine levels did not change following the hypnotic dose of propofol but increased significantly following surgical doses of propofol anesthesia.Notably,the concentrations of the five neurotransmitters generally decreased during sevoflurane-induced loss of consciousness.Furthermore,the neurotransmitter dynamic networks were not synchronized in the non-anesthesia groups but were highly synchronized in the anesthetic groups.These findings suggest that neurotransmitter dynamic network synchronization may cause anesthetic-induced loss of consciousness.

Cortico-striatal gamma oscillations are modulated by dopamine D3 receptors in dyskinetic rats

Long-term levodopa administration can lead to the development of levodopa-induced dyskinesia.Gamma oscillations are a widely recognized hallmark of abnormal neural electrical activity in levodopa-induced dyskinesia.Currently,studies have reported increased oscillation power in cases of levodopa-induced dyskinesia.However,little is known about how the other electrophysiological parameters of gamma oscillations are altered in levodopa-induced dyskinesia.Furthermore,the role of the dopamine D3 receptor,which is implicated in levodopa-induced dyskinesia,in movement disorder-related changes in neural oscillations is unclear.We found that the cortico-striatal functional connectivity of beta oscillations was enhanced in a model of Parkinson’s disease.Furthermore,levodopa application enhanced cortical gamma oscillations in cortico-striatal projections and cortical gamma aperiodic components,as well as bidirectional primary motor cortex(M1)↔dorsolateral striatum gamma flow.Administration of PD128907(a selective dopamine D3 receptor agonist)induced dyskinesia and excessive gamma oscillations with a bidirectional M1↔dorsolateral striatum flow.However,administration of PG01037(a selective dopamine D3 receptor antagonist)attenuated dyskinesia,suppressed gamma oscillations and cortical gamma aperiodic components,and decreased gamma causality in the M1→dorsolateral striatum direction.These findings suggest that the dopamine D3 receptor plays a role in dyskinesia-related oscillatory activity,and that it has potential as a therapeutic target for levodopa-induced dyskinesia.

Experience-dependent expression of Nogo-A and Nogo receptor in the developing rat visual cortex

Nogo-A and Nogo receptor （NgR） expression in the visual cortex following a critical developmental period （postnatal days 20-60） has been previously shown. However, little is known regarding Nogo-A and NgR expression between postnatal day 0 and initiation of the critical period. The present study analyzed Nogo-A and NgR expression at four different time points： postnatal day 0 （P0）, before critical period （P14）, during critical period （P28）, and after critical period （P60）. Results showed significantly increased Nogo-A mRNA and protein expression levels in the visual cortex following birth, and expression levels remained steady between P28 and P60. NgR mRNA or protein expression was dramatically upregulated with age and peaked at P14 or P28, respectively, and maintained high expression to P60. In addition, Nogo-A and NgR expression was analyzed in each visual cortex layer in normal developing rats and rats with monocular deprivation. Monocular deprivation decreased Nogo-A and NgR mRNA and protein expression in the rat visual cortex, in particular in layers Ⅱ-Ⅲ and Ⅳ in the visual cortex contralateral to the deprived eye. These findings suggested that Nogo-A and NgR regulated termination of the critical period in experience- dependent visual cortical plasticity.

Contextual Fear Learning and Extinction in the Primary Visual Cortex of Mice

Fear memory contextualization is critical for selecting adaptive behavior to survive.Contextual fear conditioning(CFC)is a classical model for elucidating related underlying neuronal circuits.The primary visual cortex(V1)is the primary cortical region for contextual visual inputs,but its role in CFC is poorly understood.Here,our experiments demonstrated that bilateral inactivation of V1 in mice impaired CFC retrieval,and both CFC learning and extinction increased the turnover rate of axonal boutons in V1.The frequency of neuronal Ca^(2+)activity decreased after CFC learning,while CFC extinction reversed the decrease and raised it to the naïve level.Contrary to control mice,the frequency of neuronal Ca^(2+)activity increased after CFC learning in microglia-depleted mice and was maintained after CFC extinction,indicating that microglial depletion alters CFC learning and the frequency response pattern of extinction-induced Ca^(2+)activity.These findings reveal a critical role of microglia in neocortical information processing in V1,and suggest potential approaches for cellular-based manipulation of acquired fear memory.

The thalamic-primary auditory cortex circuit: a pathway to resilience in the face of stress and a potential target for depression treatment

Major depressive disorder(MDD),characterized by anhedonia,loss of motivation,behavioral despair,and cognitive abnormalities[1],stands as the second leading cause of disability worldwide[2]owing to its heightened prevalence,suicide rates,and recurrence[3].Empirical evidence and clinical observations have substantiated the notion that patients with MDD often exhibit compromised auditory perception[4].

Effects of urethane on the response properties of visual cortical neurons in young adult and old cats

Previous studies have shown that visual cortical neurons in old mammals exhibit higher spontaneous activity,higher responsiveness to visual stimuli,and lower selectivity for stimulus orientations and motion directions than did neurons in young adult counterparts.However,whether the responsive difference in cortical neurons between young and old animals resulted from different effects induced by anesthetics has remained unclear.To clarify this issue,we recorded the response properties of individual neurons in the primary visual cortex of old and young adult cats while systematically varying the anesthesia level of urethane,a widely used anesthetic in physiology experiments.Our results showed that cumulatively administrating 50 mg and 100 mg of urethane upon the minimal level of urethane required to anesthetize an old or young adult cat did not significantly alter the degree of neuronal response selectivity for stimulus orientations and motion directions nor significantly change the visually-driven response and spontaneous activity of neurons in old and young adult cats.Cumulatively administrating 150 mg of urethane decreased neuronal responsiveness similarly in both age groups.Therefore,urethane appears to exert similar effects on neuronal response properties of old and young adult animals.

Neural circuits and temporal plasticity in hindlimb representation of rat primary somatosensory cortex:revisited by multi-electrode array on brain slices

Objective The well-established planar multi-electrode array recording technique was used to investigate neural circuits and temporal plasticity in the hindlimb representation of the rat primary somatosensory cortex （S1 area） . Methods Freshly dissociated acute brain slices of rats were subject to constant perfusion with oxygenated artificial cerebrospinal fluid （95% O2 and 5% CO2） , and were mounted on a Med64 probe （64 electrodes, 8×8 array） for simultaneous multi-site electrophysiological recordings. Current sources and sinks across all the 64 electrodes were transformed into two-dimensional current source density images by bilinear interpolation at each point of the 64 electrodes. Results The local intracortical connection, which is involved in mediation of downward information flow across layers II-VI, was identified by electrical stimulation （ES） at layers II-III. The thalamocortical connection, which is mainly involved in mediation of upward information flow across layers II-IV, was also characterized by ES at layer IV. The thalamocortical afferent projections were likely to make more synaptic contacts with S1 neurons than the intracortical connections did. Moreover, the S1 area was shown to be more easily activated and more intensively innervated by the thalamocortical afferent projections than by the intracortical connections. Finally, bursting conditioning stimulus （CS） applied within layer IV of the S1 area could success-fully induce long-term potentiation （LTP） in 5 of the 6 slices （83.3%） , while the same CS application at layers II-III induced no LTP in any of the 6 tested slices. Conclusion The rat hindlimb representation of S1 area is likely to have at least 2 patterns of neural circuits on brain slices： one is the intracortical circuit （ICC） formed by interlaminar connections from layers II-III, and the other is the thalamocortical circuit （TCC） mediated by afferent connections from layer IV. Besides, ICC of the S1 area is spatially limited, with less plasticity, while TCC is spatially extensive and exhibits a better plasticity in response to somatosensory afferent stimulation. The present data provide a useful experimental model for further studying microcircuit properties in S1 cortex at the network level in vitro.

Effects of different frequencies of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on the recovery of upper limb motor dysfunction in patients with subacute cerebral infarction

Studies have confirmed that low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can decrease the activity of cortical neurons, and high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can increase the excitability of cortical neurons. However, there are few studies concerning the use of different frequencies of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on the recovery of upper-limb motor function after cerebral infarction. We hypothesized that different frequencies of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation in patients with cerebral infarction would produce different effects on the recovery of upper-limb motor function. This study enrolled 127 patients with upper-limb dysfunction during the subacute phase of cerebral infarction. These patients were randomly assigned to three groups. The low-frequency group comprised 42 patients who were treated with 1 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on the contralateral hemisphere primary motor cortex （M1）. The high-frequency group comprised 43 patients who were treated with 10 Hz repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation on ipsilateral M1. Finally, the sham group comprised 42 patients who were treated with 10 Hz of false stimulation on ipsilateral M1. A total of 135 seconds of stimulation was applied in the sham group and high-frequency group. At 2 weeks after treatment, cortical latency of motor-evoked potentials and central motor conduction time were significantly lower compared with before treatment. Moreover, motor function scores were significantly improved. The above indices for the low- and high-frequency groups were significantly different compared with the sham group. However, there was no significant difference between the low- and high-frequency groups. The results show that low- and high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation can similarly improve upper-limb motor function in patients with cerebral infarction.

Contralateral S1 function is involved in electroacupuncture treatment-mediated recovery after focal unilateral M1 infarction

Acupuncture at acupoints Baihui(GV20)and Dazhui(GV14)has been shown to promote functional recovery after stroke.However,the contribution of the contralateral primary sensory cortex(S1)to recovery remains unclear.In this study,unilateral local ischemic infarction of the primary motor cortex(M1)was induced by photothrombosis in a mouse model.Electroacupuncture(EA)was subsequently performed at acupoints GV20 and GV14 and neuronal activity and functional connectivity of contralateral S1 and M1 were detected using in vivo and in vitro electrophysiological recording techniques.Our results showed that blood perfusion and neuronal interaction between contralateral M1 and S1 is impaired after unilateral M1 infarction.Intrinsic neuronal excitability and activity were also disturbed,which was rescued by EA.Furthermore,the effectiveness of EA treatment was inhibited after virus-mediated neuronal ablation of the contralateral S1.We conclude that neuronal activity of the contralateral S1 is important for EA-mediated recovery after focal M1 infarction.Our study provides insight into how the S1-M1 circuit might be involved in the mechanism of EA treatment of unilateral cerebral infarction.The animal experiments were approved by the Committee for Care and Use of Research Animals of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine(approval No.20200407009)April 7,2020.

Super-Resolution Track-Density Imaging Reveals Fine Anatomical Features in Tree Shrew Primary Visual Cortex and Hippocampus

Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging（d MRI） is widely used to study white and gray matter（GM） micro-organization and structural connectivity in the brain. Super-resolution track-density imaging（TDI） is an image reconstruction method for d MRI data, which is capable of providing spatial resolution beyond the acquired data, as well as novel and meaningful anatomical contrast that cannot be obtained with conventional reconstruction methods. TDI has been used to reveal anatomical features in human and animal brains. In this study, we used short track TDI（st TDI）, a variation of TDI with enhanced contrast for GM structures, to reconstruct directionencoded color maps of fixed tree shrew brain. The results were compared with those obtained with the traditional diffusion tensor imaging（DTI） method. We demonstrated that fine microstructures in the tree shrew brain, such as Baillarger bands in the primary visual cortex and the longitudinal component of the mossy fibers within the hippocampal CA3 subfield, were observable with st TDI,but not with DTI reconstructions from the same d MRI data.The possible mechanisms underlying the enhanced GM contrast are discussed.

Modulation of Spike Count Correlations Between Macaque Primary Visual Cortex Neurons by Difficulty of Attentional Task

Studies have shown that spatial attention remarkably affects the trial-to-trial response variability shared between neurons.Difficulty in the attentional task adjusts how much concentration we maintain on what is currently important and what is filtered as irrelevant sensory information.However,how task difficulty mediates the interactions between neurons with separated receptive fields(RFs)that are attended to or attended away is still not clear.We examined spike count correlations between single-unit activities recorded simultaneously in the primary visual cortex(V1)while monkeys performed a spatial attention task with two levels of difficulty.Moreover,the RFs of the two neurons recorded were non-overlapping to allow us to study fluctuations in the correlated responses between competing visual inputs when the focus of attention was allocated to the RF of one neuron.While increasing difficulty in the spatial attention task,spike count correlations were either decreased to become negative between neuronal pairs,implying competition among them,with one neuron(or none)exhibiting attentional enhancement of firing rate,or increased to become positive,suggesting inter-neuronal cooperation,with one of the pair showing attentional suppression of spiking responses.Besides,the modulation of spike count correlations by task difficulty was independent of the attended locations.These findings provide evidence that task difficulty affects the functional interactions between different neuronal pools in V1 when selective attention resolves the spatial competition.

Neurons in Primary Motor Cortex Encode Hand Orientation in a Reach-to-Grasp Task

It is disputed whether those neurons in the primary motor cortex（M1） that encode hand orientation constitute an independent channel for orientation control in reach-to-grasp behaviors. Here, we trained two monkeys to reach forward and grasp objects positioned in the frontal plane at different orientation angles, and simultaneously recorded the activity of M1 neurons. Among the 2235 neurons recorded in M1, we found that 18.7% had a high correlation exclusively with hand orientation, 15.9% with movement direction, and 29.5% with both movement direction and hand orientation. The distributions of neurons encoding hand orientation and those encoding movement direction were not uniform but coexisted in the same region. The trajectory of hand rotation was reproduced by the firing patterns of the orientation-related neurons independent of the hand reaching direction. These resultssuggest that hand orientation is an independent component for the control of reaching and grasping activity.