Neural correlates of resynchronization in a paced finger-tapping task with step-change perturbations

CACERES LUCILA; BAVASSI, LUZ; J. E. KAMIENKOWSKI; RODRIGO LAJE

San Diego

Congreso; Annual Meeting of Society of Neuroscience; 2018

Few animal species have the ability of sensorimotor synchronization (SMS), that is keeping pace with an external metronome as in finger tapping to a beat. SMS in humans is a spontaneous and very robust behavior, and it is the basis of music and dance. However, after many decades of research mostly focused in isochronous sequences the search for neural correlates of the behavior has just begun, e.g. neural signatures of the asynchrony and the stimulus period, and a mechanistic explanation of the behavior in terms of neural processes and brain regions is still missing. The description of neural activity during resynchronization after a perturbation is even more scarce. Here we report an analysis of EEG recordings during a paced finger tapping experiment with tempo perturbations.The experiment was performed with 10 participants, all were right handed and had musical training. The test consisted of a finger-tapping task with step change perturbations (10ms, positive and negative directions). At the same time EEG recordings were done.We show a novelfrontal neural component that spans a few periods while the subject is resynchronizing. A second finding is that alterations to a component of central origin resembling an N1-P2 complex also span several periods after the perturbation. In addition, a counterintuitive result is that the number of taps it takes to the subject to go back to synchrony after a perturbation only partially correlates with the asynchrony at the time of perturbation (i.e. how far from synchrony the subject is when the periodchanges) and that the state of the system as measured by the amplitude of the mu band also plays a role.We take a step towards finding the neural correlates of resynchronization by showing EEG components that span several periods after a tempo perturbation and whose latencies and/oramplitudes do not correlate with either purely motor or sensory events. Resynchronization at the behavioral level can be predicted by looking at the central level.