Mouse sensorimotor cortex reflects complex kinematic details during reaching and grasping

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Abstract
Coordinated forelimb actions, such as reaching and grasping, rely on motor commands that span a spectrum from abstract target specification to detailed instantaneous muscle control. The sensorimotor cortex is central to controlling these complex movements, yet how the detailed command signals are distributed across its numerous subregions remains unclear. In particular, in mice it is unknown if the primary motor (M1) and somatosensory (S1) cortices represent low-level joint angle details in addition to high-level signals like movement direction. Here, we combine high quality markerless tracking and two-photon imaging during a reach-to-grasp task to quantify movement-related activity in the mouse caudal forelimb area (CFA) and forelimb S1 (fS1). Linear decoding models reveal a strong representation of proximal and distal joint angles in both areas, and both areas support joint angle decoding with comparable fidelity. Despite shared low-level encoding, the time course of high-level target-specific information varied across areas. CFA exhibited early onset and sustained encoding of target-specific signals while fS1 was more transiently modulated around lift onset. These results reveal both shared and unique contributions of CFA and fS1 to reaching and grasping, implicating a more distributed cortical circuit for mouse forelimb control than has been previously considered.

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