Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Modulation of Motor Awareness: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study in the Healthy Brain

Adriana Salatino
* ORCID logo ,
Pietro Sarasso
,
Alessandro Piedimonte
,
Francesca Garbarini
,
Raffaella Ricci
,
Anna Berti
*
Version 1 : Received: 12 September 2023 / Approved: 13 September 2023 / Online: 13 September 2023 (11:00:01 CEST)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Salatino, A.; Sarasso, P.; Piedimonte, A.; Garbarini, F.; Ricci, R.; Berti, A. Modulation of Motor Awareness: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study in the Healthy Brain. Brain Sci. 2023, 13, 1422. Salatino, A.; Sarasso, P.; Piedimonte, A.; Garbarini, F.; Ricci, R.; Berti, A. Modulation of Motor Awareness: A Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Study in the Healthy Brain. Brain Sci. 2023, 13, 1422.

Abstract

Previous studies on the mechanisms underlying willed actions reported that the premotor cortex may be involved in the construction of motor awareness. However, its exact role is still under investigation. Here we investigated the role of the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) in motor awareness by modulating its activity applying inhibitory rTMS to PMd, before a specific motor awareness task (under three conditions: without stimulation, after rTMS and after sham stimulation). During the task, subjects had to trace straight lines to a given target, receiving a visual feedback of the line trajectories on a computer screen. Crucially, in most trials the trajectories on the screen were deviated and to produce straight lines, subjects had to correct their movements towards the opposite direction. After each trial, participants were asked to judge whether the line seen on the computer screen corresponded to the line actually drawn. Results show that participants in the no stimulation condition did not recognize the perturbation until 14 degrees of deviation. Importantly, active, but not sham, rTMS significantly modulated motor awareness, decreasing the amplitude of the angle at which participants became aware of the trajectory correction. These results suggest that PMd plays a crucial role in action self- monitoring.

Keywords

Self-monitoring, Motor Awareness, Premotor Cortex, TMS, low-frequency, Awareness

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Life Sciences

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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