Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Bressler, Steven L.
Abstract
We sought to better understand human motor control by investigating functional interactions between the Supplementary Motor Area (SMA), dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex (dACC), and primary motor cortex (M1) in healthy adolescent participants performing visually coordinated unimanual finger-movement and n-back working memory tasks. We discovered modulation of the SMA by the dACC by analysis of fMRI BOLD time series recorded from the three ROIs (SMA, dACC, and M1) in each participant. Two measures of functional interaction were used: undirected functional connectivity was measured using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient (PMCC), and directed functional connectivity was measured from linear autoregressive (AR) models. In the first project, task-specific modulation of the SMA by the dACC was discovered while subjects performed a coordinated unimanual finger-movement task, in which the finger movement was synchronized with an exogenous visual stimulus. In the second project, modulation of the SMA by the dACC was found to be significantly greater in the finger coordination task than in an n-back working memory, in which the same finger movement signified a motor response indicating a 0-back or 2-back working memory match. We thus demonstrated in the first study that the dACC sends task-specific directed signals to the supplementary motor area, suggesting a role for the dACC in top-down motor control. Finally, the second study revealed that these signals were significantly greater in the coordinated motor task than in the n-back working memory task, suggesting that the modulation of the SMA by the dACC was associated with sustained, continuous motor production and/or motor expectation, rather than with the motor movement itself.
Extent
157 p.
Recommended Citation
Asemi, Avisa, "The Role of Dorsal Anterior Cingulate Cortex in the Motor Control" (2015). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2010 - 2019. 1350.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general_6/1350
Identifier
FA00004478
Comments
Includes bibliography.|Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2015.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.