Evidence map›Paper›PMID 27814352›Full record

ArticlePLoS computational biology2016

Neural Population Dynamics during Reaching Are Better Explained by a Dynamical System than Representational Tuning.

Jonathan A Michaels, Benjamin Dann, Hansjörg Scherberger

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PLoS computational biology, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 92 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
92citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

92 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Article
  3. Limb state accounts for differences between motor imagery and action in motor cortex.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026
    Article
  4. Review
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Switching between Newly Learned Motor Skills.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025
    Article
  8. Article
  9. Neural trajectories improve motor precision.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  10. Article
  11. Article
  12. Article
  13. Article
  14. Article
  15. Article
  16. Review
  17. Review
  18. Motor Cortex Latent Dynamics Encode Spatial and Temporal Arm Movement Parameters Independently.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024
    Article
  19. Article
  20. Article

32 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Jonathan A MichaelsGerman Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5179-3181
Benjamin DannGerman Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany.
Hansjörg ScherbergerGerman Primate Center, Göttingen, Germany.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6593-2800

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Recent models of movement generation in motor cortex have sought to explain neural activity not as a function of movement parameters, known as representational models, but as a dynamical system acting at the level of the population. Despite evidence supporting this framework, the evaluation of representational models and their integration with dynamical systems is incomplete in the literature. Using a representational velocity-tuning based simulation of center-out reaching, we show that incorporating variable latency offsets between neural activity and kinematics is sufficient to generate rotational dynamics at the level of neural populations, a phenomenon observed in motor cortex. However, we developed a covariance-matched permutation test (CMPT) that reassigns neural data between task conditions independently for each neuron while maintaining overall neuron-to-neuron relationships, revealing that rotations based on the representational model did not uniquely depend on the underlying condition structure. In contrast, rotations based on either a dynamical model or motor cortex data depend on this relationship, providing evidence that the dynamical model more readily explains motor cortex activity. Importantly, implementing a recurrent neural network we demonstrate that both representational tuning properties and rotational dynamics emerge, providing evidence that a dynamical system can reproduce previous findings of representational tuning. Finally, using motor cortex data in combination with the CMPT, we show that results based on small numbers of neurons or conditions should be interpreted cautiously, potentially informing future experimental design. Together, our findings reinforce the view that representational models lack the explanatory power to describe complex aspects of single neuron and population level activity.

Indexed as

Models, NeurologicalAnimalsArmComputer SimulationHumansMotor CortexMovementNerve NetNeuronsPsychomotor PerformanceSynaptic Transmission

Identifiers

PMID27814352
PMCPMC5096671

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.