Information processing in the primate basal ganglia during sensory-guided and internally driven rhythmic tapping

• Published in: The Journal of neuroscience Vol. 34; no. 11; pp. 3910 - 3923
• Main Authors: Bartolo, Ramón, Prado, Luis, Merchant, Hugo
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Society for Neuroscience 12-03-2014
• Subjects: Action Potentials - physiology; Animals; Basal Ganglia - cytology; Basal Ganglia - physiology; Cortical Synchronization - physiology; Fourier Analysis; Macaca mulatta - physiology; Male; Models, Neurological; Movement - physiology; Periodicity; Psychomotor Performance - physiology; Putamen - cytology; Putamen - physiology; rhesus monkey; synchronization-continuation task; interval tuning; timing; spikes and LFPs
• ISSN: 0270-6474; 1529-2401
• DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.2679-13.2014

Gamma (γ) and beta (β) oscillations seem to play complementary functions in the cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical circuit (CBGT) during motor behavior. We investigated the time-varying changes of the putaminal spiking activity and the spectral power of local field potentials (LFPs) during a task where the rhythmic tapping of monkeys was guided by isochronous stimuli separated by a fixed duration (synchronization phase), followed by a period of internally timed movements (continuation phase). We found that the power of both bands and the discharge rate of cells showed an orderly change in magnitude as a function of the duration and/or the serial order of the intervals executed rhythmically. More LFPs were tuned to duration and/or serial order in the β- than the γ-band, although different values of preferred features were represented by single cells and by both bands. Importantly, in the LFPs tuned to serial order, there was a strong bias toward the continuation phase for the β-band when aligned to movements, and a bias toward the synchronization phase for the γ-band when aligned to the stimuli. Our results suggest that γ-oscillations reflect local computations associated with stimulus processing, whereas β-activity involves the entrainment of large putaminal circuits, probably in conjunction with other elements of CBGT, during internally driven rhythmic tapping.