Uncertainty leads to persistent effects on reach representations in dorsal premotor cortex.

Every movement we make represents one of many possible actions. In reaching tasks with multiple targets, dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) appears to represent all possible actions simultaneously. However, in many situations we are not presented with explicit choices. Instead, we must estimate the best action based on noisy information and execute it while still uncertain of our choice. Here we asked how both primary motor cortex (M1) and PMd represented reach direction during a task in which a…

Brain-state classification and a dual-state decoder dramatically improve the control of cursor movement through a brain-machine interface.