Sensory Motor Transformations in Human Cortex

The long-term objective is to understand cortical processing of sensory to motor transformations within the human cerebral cortex. The project will use cortical implants of microelectrode arrays in primary motor cortex, primary somatosensory cortex, and posterior parietal cortex of tetraplegic participants to record from populations of single neurons and perform intracortical microstimulation. Hypotheses to be tested include: somatosensory and motor cortex represent imagined reaches in hand coordinates, while posterior parietal cortex flexibly changes coordinate frames; imagined and electrically evoked sensations overlap in primary somatosensory and posterior parietal cortices; and posterior parietal cortex contains an internal model of state estimation that shows plasticity and transfers learning to motor cortex. The research aims to advance understanding of the human sensorimotor cortical circuit and provide basic knowledge for future neural prosthetics design.