@misc{10481/93488,
year = {2024},
month = {4},
url = {https://hdl.handle.net/10481/93488},
abstract = {Instructions allow us to fulfill novel and complex tasks on the first try. This skill has been
linked to preparatory brain signals that encode upcoming demands in advance, facilitating
novel performance. To deepen insight into these processes, we explored whether
instructions pre-activated task-relevant motoric and perceptual neural states. Critically, we
addressed whether these representations anticipated activity patterns guiding overt
sensorimotor processing, which could reflect that internally simulating novel tasks
facilitates the preparation. To do so, we collected functional magnetic resonance imaging
data while female and male participants encoded and implemented novel stimulusresponse
associations. Participants also completed localizer tasks designed to isolate the
neural representations of the mappings-relevant motor responses, perceptual
consequences, and stimulus categories. Using canonical template tracking, we identified
whether and where these sensorimotor representations were pre-activated. We found that
response-related templates were encoded in advance in regions linked with action control,
entailing not only the instructed responses but also their somatosensory consequences.
This result was particularly robust in primary motor and somatosensory cortices. While,
following our predictions, we found a systematic decrease in the irrelevant stimulus
templates’ representational strength compared to the relevant ones, this difference was
due to below-zero estimates linked to the irrelevant category activity patterns. Overall, our
findings reflect that instruction processing relies on the sensorimotor cortices to anticipate
motoric and kinesthetic representations of prospective action plans, suggesting the
engagement of motor imagery during novel task preparation. More generally, they stress
that the somatomotor system could participate with higher-level frontoparietal regions
during anticipatory task control.},
organization = {G00951N of the Flemish Government attributed to
BL and JDH},
organization = {Grant PAIDI21_00207 of the Andalusian Autonomic
Government},
organization = {IJC2019-040208-I and Project PID2020-
116342GA-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033},
organization = {RYC2021-
033536-I funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and by the European Union
NextGeneration EU/PRTR},
organization = {Methusalem funding from the Special
Research Fund (BOF) of Ghent University (reference number: BOF22/MET_V/002)},
organization = {Einstein Strategic Professorship of the Einstein Foundation Berlin
(EPP-2018-483) and by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research
Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2002/1 “Science of Intelligence”
(project number: 390523135)},
organization = {Utrecht University Focus Area on
Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence},
publisher = {CSH},
keywords = {Novel instructed behavior},
keywords = {cognitive control},
keywords = {task preparation},
title = {Concurrent response and action effect representations across the somatomotor cortices during novel task preparation},
doi = {10.1101/2023.10.30.564708},
author = {Palenciano Castro, Ana Francisca and González García, Carlos and De Houwer, Jan and Liefooghe, Baptist and Brass, Marcel},
}