It is important to be able to make movements quickly and accurately. An animal waiting to catch its prey may only have one chance - a poorly executed pounce could mean no dinner, or worse. The animal must consider and choose between multiple motor plans, using incoming sensory information to decide where and when to move. The brain's capacity to integrate sensory information with prior information and statistics about the world allows us to prepare movements in advance. This planning is critical for our ability to execute fast and accurate movements. A central question in neuroscience, and also of fundamental clinical importance, is to understand how these plans develop in the brain. Several research groups are starting to build prosthetic devices that are controlled directly by neural activity in motor areas of the brain (Nicolelis, 2001; Donoghue, 2002; Schwartz, 2004; Santhanam et al., 2006; Hochberg et al., 2006), but the extent to which these can be developed hinges critically upon our understanding of the neural basis of motor preparation.
The goal of my research is to understand how the dynamics of planning activity in dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) relate to behavior. In particular, I am investigating the influence of planning speed, uncertainty, and choice on the temporal evolution of reaching plans.
