The mouse motor system contains multiple premotor areas and partially follows human organizational principles
Alberto Lazari,
Mohamed Tachrount,
Juan Miguel Valverde,
Daniel Papp,
Antoine Beauchamp,
Paul McCarthy,
Jacob Ellegood,
Joanes Grandjean,
Heidi Johansen-Berg,
Valerio Zerbi,
Jason P. Lerch,
Rogier B. Mars
Affiliations
Alberto Lazari
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Corresponding author
Mohamed Tachrount
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Juan Miguel Valverde
DTU Compute, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens Lyngby, Denmark; A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences, University of Eastern Finland, 70150 Kuopio, Finland
Daniel Papp
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; NeuroPoly Lab, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada
Antoine Beauchamp
Mouse Imaging Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children, Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Paul McCarthy
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Jacob Ellegood
Mouse Imaging Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children, Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; Bloorview Research Institute, Holland Bloorview Kids Rehabilitation Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada
Joanes Grandjean
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Heidi Johansen-Berg
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Valerio Zerbi
Neuro-X Institute, School of Engineering (STI), EPFL, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland; CIBM Center for Biomedical Imaging, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
Jason P. Lerch
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Mouse Imaging Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children, Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Rogier B. Mars
Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK; Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands
Summary: While humans are known to have several premotor cortical areas, secondary motor cortex (M2) is often considered to be the only higher-order motor area of the mouse brain and is thought to combine properties of various human premotor cortices. Here, we show that axonal tracer, functional connectivity, myelin mapping, gene expression, and optogenetics data contradict this notion. Our analyses reveal three premotor areas in the mouse, anterior-lateral motor cortex (ALM), anterior-lateral M2 (aM2), and posterior-medial M2 (pM2), with distinct structural, functional, and behavioral properties. By using the same techniques across mice and humans, we show that ALM has strikingly similar functional and microstructural properties to human anterior ventral premotor areas and that aM2 and pM2 amalgamate properties of human pre-SMA and cingulate cortex. These results provide evidence for the existence of multiple premotor areas in the mouse and chart a comparative map between the motor systems of humans and mice.
