期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2017
卷号：114
期号：42
页码：E8913-E8921
DOI：10.1073/pnas.1705373114
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：In behavior, action and perception are inherently interdependent. However, the actual mechanistic contributions of the motor system to sensory processing are unknown. We present neurophysiological evidence that the motor system is involved in predictive timing, a brain function that aligns temporal fluctuations of attention with the timing of events in a task-relevant stream, thus facilitating sensory selection and optimizing behavior. In a magnetoencephalography experiment involving auditory temporal attention, participants had to disentangle two streams of sound on the unique basis of endogenous temporal cues. We show that temporal predictions are encoded by interdependent delta and beta neural oscillations originating from the left sensorimotor cortex, and directed toward auditory regions. We also found that overt rhythmic movements improved the quality of temporal predictions and sharpened the temporal selection of relevant auditory information. This latter behavioral and functional benefit was associated with increased signaling of temporal predictions in right-lateralized frontoparietal associative regions. In sum, this study points at a covert form of auditory active sensing. Our results emphasize the key role of motor brain areas in providing contextual temporal information to sensory regions, driving perceptual and behavioral selection.
