Spatiotemporal organization of human sensorimotor beta burst activity

Abstract
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Abstract

Beta oscillations in human sensorimotor cortex are hallmark signatures of healthy and pathological movement. In single trials, beta oscillations include bursts of intermittent, transient periods of high-power activity. These burst events have been linked to a range of sensory and motor processes, but their precise spatial, spectral, and temporal structure remains unclear. Specifically, a role for beta burst activity in information coding and communication suggests spatiotemporal patterns, or travelling wave activity, along specific anatomical gradients. We here show in human magnetoencephalography recordings that burst activity in sensorimotor cortex occurs in planar spatiotemporal wave-like patterns that dominate along two axes either parallel or perpendicular to the central sulcus. Moreover, we find that the two propagation directions are characterised by distinct anatomical and physiological features. Finally, our results suggest that sensorimotor beta bursts occurring before and after a movement can be distinguished by their anatomical, spectral and spatiotemporal characteristics, indicating distinct functional roles.

Data availability

Data are available via the Open Science Framework (OSF) at https://osf. io/eu6nx. Data are also archived at the Open MEG Archive (OMEGA; Nisoetal.,2016) and may be accessed via http://dx .doi.org/10.23686/ 0015896 (Niso et al.,2018) after registration at https:// www.mcgill.ca/bic/resources/omega.

Article and author information

Author details

Catharina Zich

Department of Clinical and Movement Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom

For correspondence
catharina.zich@ndcn.ox.ac.uk

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-0705-9297
Andrew J Quinn

Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-2267-9897
James J Bonaiuto

Institut des Sciences Cognitives Marc Jeannerod, Bron, France

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
George O'Neill

Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Lydia C Mardell

Department of Clinical and Movement Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-3180-3239
Nick S Ward

Department of Clinical and Movement Neuroscience, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Sven Bestmann

epartment for Clinical and Movement Neuroscience, Institute of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6867-9545

Funding

Brain Research UK (201718-13)

Catharina Zich

Brain Research UK (201617-03)

Catharina Zich

Wellcome Trust (098369/Z/12/Z)

Andrew J Quinn

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EP/T001046/1)

George O'Neill

Medical Research Council (MR/N013867/1)

Lydia C Mardell

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study protocol was in full accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and all participants gave written informed consent after being fully informed about the purpose of the study. The study protocol, participant information, and form of consent, were approved by the UCL Research Ethics Committee (reference number 5833/001).

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.