Cortical beta oscillations help synchronise muscles during static posture holding in healthy motor control
Thomas G. Simpson,
William Godfrey,
Flavie Torrecillos,
Shenghong He,
Damian M. Herz,
Ashwini Oswal,
Muthuraman Muthuraman,
Alek Pogosyan,
Huiling Tan
Affiliations
Thomas G. Simpson
Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
William Godfrey
Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Flavie Torrecillos
Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Shenghong He
Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Damian M. Herz
Movement Disorders and Neurostimulation, Department of Neurology, Focus Program Translational Neuroscience (FTN), University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Mainz, Germany
Ashwini Oswal
Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Muthuraman Muthuraman
Neural Engineering with Signal Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (NESA-AI), Department of Neurology, Universitätsklinikum Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany
Alek Pogosyan
Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Huiling Tan
Corresponding author.; Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
How cortical oscillations are involved in the coordination of functionally coupled muscles and how this is modulated by different movement contexts (static vs dynamic) remains unclear. Here, this is investigated by recording high-density electroencephalography (EEG) and electromyography (EMG) from different forearm muscles while healthy participants (n = 20) performed movement tasks (static and dynamic posture holding, and reaching) with their dominant hand. When dynamic perturbation was applied, beta band (15–35 Hz) activities in the motor cortex contralateral to the performing hand reduced during the holding phase, comparative to when there was no perturbation. During static posture holding, transient periods of increased cortical beta oscillations (beta bursts) were associated with greater corticomuscular coherence and increased phase synchrony between muscles (intermuscular coherence) in the beta frequency band compared to the no-burst period. This effect was not present when resisting dynamic perturbation. The results suggest that cortical beta bursts assist synchronisation of different muscles during static posture holding in healthy motor control, contributing to the maintenance and stabilisation of functional muscle groups. Theoretically, increased cortical beta oscillations could lead to exaggerated synchronisation in different muscles making the initialisation of movements more difficult, as observed in Parkinson's disease.
