Presenter(s): Ryan Leriche—Biology
Faculty Mentor(s): Ryan Leriche
Session 6: Interact & React
We investigated how brain electrical activity changes with movement speed and movement uncertainty . Understanding the electrophysiological profile of movement speed could have applications for Parkinson’s Disease while movement uncertainty may be an ignored confound across many experiments .
We used a computerized task to manipulate participants to move more slowly or more quickly . In addition to these “slow” and “fast” blocks, our task manipulated the certainty of an upcoming movement . When participants knew when they were going to move this was known as a “certain” block . Conversely, during “uncertain” blocks, participants were not sure when they were going to move . Movement speed (slow or fast) and movement uncertainty (certain or uncertain) blocks were paired together creating four possible blocks: fast-certain, fast-uncertain, slow-certain, and slow- uncertain . Scalp-electro-encephalography (EEG) was recorded from 12 participants during this task to examine their brain activity . We looked at the electrical activity in the beta (13-30 Hz) frequency range over the sensorimotor cortex . Our findings suggest that beta-band activity is elevated in during slower movements . The slow-uncertain block had increased beta power compared to the fast- uncertain block during movement preparation . Our other results are less conclusive .