Key result
Inhibiting or facilitating the primary motor cortex decreases or increases, respectively, the propensity to select the most rewarding action during value-based motor decisions.
Why the study?
This thesis synthesizes 10 years of work investigating the functional role of the motor system in sensorimotor decision-making and the neural origin of decision-related primary motor cortex changes.
The primary motor cortex plays a causal role in integrating reward signals and sensory evidence during sensorimotor decision-making, challenging the traditional view that it solely executes actions.
Questions motor integration of decision variables; leaves open its precise role in sensorimotor choices.
In this Habilitation Thesis, I synthesize 10 years of work on the role of the motor system in sensorimotor decision-making. First, a large part of the work we initially performed (2014-2020) questioned the functional role of the motor system in the integration of so-called decision variables such as the reward associated with different actions, the sensory evidence in favor of each action or the level of urgency in a given context. To this end, although the exact methodology may have varied, the approach exploited has been to study either the impact of a perturbation of the primary motor cortex (M1) on the integration of such decision variables in decision behavior, or the influence of these variables on changes in M1 activity during the decision. More recently (2020 - present), we have been investigating the neural origin of some of the changes in M1 activity observed during decision-making. To answer this question, a "perturbation-and-measurement" approach is exploited: the activity of a structure at a distance from M1 is perturbed, and the impact on the changes in M1 activity during decision-making is measured. The thesis ends up with a personal reflection on this paradigmatic evolution and discusses some key questions to be addressed in our field of research.
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Gérard Derosière (2023) conducted a review in Decision-making. Primary motor cortex (M1) modulation via rTMS vs. Sham stimulation was evaluated on Integration of implicit reward rules during action selection. Inhibiting or facilitating the primary motor cortex decreases or increases, respectively, the propensity to select the most rewarding action during value-based motor decisions.
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