Battaglia-Mayer, A. | Search bioRxiv

bioRxiv2021

Evidence Of We-Representation In Monkeys When Acting Together

A hallmark of successful evolution resides in the ability to adapt our actions to those of others, optimizing collective behaviour, to achieve goals otherwise unattainable by individuals acting alone. We have previously shown that macaques constitute a good model to analyse joint behavior, since they are able to coordinate their actions in a dyadic context. In the present work, we investigated whether monkeys could improve their joint-action performance, under special visuomotor conditions. The behavior of 5 monkeys was analyzed in isometric center-out tasks, requiring hand force application in different directions, either individually or together with a partner. Manipulating the presence or absence of a pre-instruction about the future action condition (SOLO or TOGETHER), allowed us to investigate on the existence of a "we-representation" in macaque monkeys. We found that pre-cueing the future action context increased the chances of dyadic success, also thanks to the emergence of an optimal kinematic setting, that ultimately facilitates inter-individual motor coordination. Our results offer empirical evidence in macaques of a "We-representation" during collective behavior, that once is cued in advance has an overall beneficial effect on joint performance.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2020

Shared population-level dynamics in monkey premotor cortex during solo action, joint action and action observation

Studies of neural population dynamics of cell activity from monkey motor areas during reaching show that it mostly represents the generation and timing of motor behavior. We compared neural dynamics in dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) during the performance of a visuomotor task executed individually or cooperatively and during an observation task. In the visuomotor conditions, monkeys applied isometric forces on a joystick to guide a visual cursor in different directions, either alone or jointly with a conspecific. In the observation condition, they observed the cursors motion guided by the partner. We found that in PMd neural dynamics were widely shared across action execution and observation, with cursor motion directions more accurately discriminated than task types. This suggests that PMd encodes spatial aspects irrespective of specific behavioral demands. Furthermore, our results suggest that largest components of premotor population dynamics, which have previously been suggested to reflect a transformation from planning to movement execution, may rather reflect higher cognitive-motor processes, such as the covert representation of actions and goals shared across tasks that require movement and those that do not. HIGHLIGHTSO_LIIn PMd neural dynamics is shared across action execution and mere observation C_LIO_LITask directional features are more accurately discriminated than action types C_LIO_LISpatial aspects are encoded in PMd independently from specific behavioral demands C_LIO_LIPMd dynamics largely reflect higher cognitive-motor processes rather than strictly motor-related functions C_LI

neuroscience↗