近日，英国MRC分子生物学实验室Marco Tripodi等研究人员合作发现，运动特性决定上丘的感觉运动对齐。相关论文于2024年7月3日在线发表在《自然》杂志上。

研究人员表示，目标导向行为的执行需要感觉和运动地图之间的空间一致对齐。目前对上丘中感觉运动转换的模型依赖于静态空间感受野向运动终点的拓扑映射。

然而，为了实验性地评估这一经典静态对齐模型的有效性，研究人员对上丘的视觉运动网络进行了详细研究，并在受限和非受限条件下进行了跨层的活体细胞内和细胞外记录，以评估单个运动和前运动神经元的运动和视觉调节。研究发现，上丘的运动单元具有不明确的静态空间感受野，而是对运动视觉特征作出反应。这揭示了感觉和运动向量之间在向量空间中的直接对齐，而不是如经典假设那样在空间感受野和运动终点之间的对齐。

研究人员展示了一个基于这些运动特性对齐原则构建的神经网络，能够很好地支持诸如快速拦截移动和静止目标等行为。这些发现揭示了感觉运动对齐过程的新维度。通过将对齐从静态扩展到运动领域，这项研究为理解感觉运动收敛的本质及其在指导目标导向行为中的作用提供了新的概念框架。

附：英文原文

Title: Kinetic features dictate sensorimotor alignment in the superior colliculus

Author: Gonzlez-Rueda, Ana, Jensen, Kristopher, Noormandipour, Mohammadreza, de Malmazet, Daniel, Wilson, Jonathan, Ciabatti, Ernesto, Kim, Jisoo, Williams, Elena, Poort, Jasper, Hennequin, Guillaume, Tripodi, Marco

Issue&Volume: 2024-07-03

Abstract: The execution of goal-oriented behaviours requires a spatially coherent alignment between sensory and motor maps. The current model for sensorimotor transformation in the superior colliculus relies on the topographic mapping of static spatial receptive fields onto movement endpoints1,2,3,4,5,6. Here, to experimentally assess the validity of this canonical static model of alignment, we dissected the visuo-motor network in the superior colliculus and performed in vivo intracellular and extracellular recordings across layers, in restrained and unrestrained conditions, to assess both the motor and the visual tuning of individual motor and premotor neurons. We found that collicular motor units have poorly defined visual static spatial receptive fields and respond instead to kinetic visual features, revealing the existence of a direct alignment in vectorial space between sensory and movement vectors, rather than between spatial receptive fields and movement endpoints as canonically hypothesized. We show that a neural network built according to these kinetic alignment principles is ideally placed to sustain ethological behaviours such as the rapid interception of moving and static targets. These findings reveal a novel dimension of the sensorimotor alignment process. By extending the alignment from the static to the kinetic domain this work provides a novel conceptual framework for understanding the nature of sensorimotor convergence and its relevance in guiding goal-directed behaviours.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07619-2

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07619-2