Differential contributions of the two human cerebral hemispheres to action timing.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 31697640.
- Also identified by DOI 10.7554/eLife.48404 and PMC identifier 6837842.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Rhythmic actions benefit from synchronization with external events. Auditory-paced finger tapping studies indicate the two cerebral hemispheres preferentially control different rhythms. It is unclear whether left-lateralized processing of faster rhythms and right-lateralized processing of slower rhythms bases upon hemispheric timing differences that arise in the motor or sensory system or whether asymmetry results from lateralized sensorimotor interactions. We measured fMRI and MEG during symmetric finger tapping, in which fast tapping was defined as auditory-motor synchronization at 2.5 Hz. Slow tapping corresponded to tapping to every fourth auditory beat (0.625 Hz). We demonstrate that the left auditory cortex preferentially represents the relative fast rhythm in an amplitude modulation of low beta oscillations while the right auditory cortex additionally represents the internally generated slower rhythm. We show coupling of auditory-motor beta oscillations supports building a metric structure. Our findings reveal a strong contribution of sensory cortices to hemispheric specialization in action control.
Medical subject headings
- Auditory Cortex
- Cerebrum
- Motor Cortex
- Psychomotor Performance
- Time