Here are the articles that caught our attention this week.

Enjoy!
—Paul, Andrew & Jörn

1

Timing is (almost) everything in a comprehensive, spike-resolved flight motor program
Conn, R., Putney, J., and Sponberg, S.
bioRxiv, 602961 (2019)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/602961v1

2

Decoding hand kinematics from population responses in sensorimotor cortex during grasping.
Okorokova, E.V., Goodman, J.M., Hatsopoulos, N.G., and Bensmaia, S.J.
arXiv [q-bio.NC] (2019)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.03531

3

Extrinsic and intrinsic dynamics in movement intermittency.
Susilaradeya, D., Xu, W., Hall, T.M., Galán, F., Alter, K., and Jackson, A.
Elife 8 (2019)
https://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.40145

4

Eye movements do not play an important role in the adaptation of hand tracking to a visuomotor rotation.
Gouirand, N., Mathew, J., Brenner, E., and Danion, F.
J. Neurophysiol. (2019)
https://dx.doi.org/10.1152/jn.00814.2018

5

Luring the Motor System: Impact of Performance-Contingent Incentives on Pre-Movement Beta-band Activity and Motor Performance.
Savoie, F.-A., Hamel, R., Lacroix, A., Thénault, F., Whittingstall, K., and Bernier, P.-M.
J. Neurosci (2019)
https://dx.doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1887-18.2019

6

Dopamine depletion affects vocal acoustics and disrupts sensorimotor adaptation in songbirds
Saravanan, V., Hoffmann, L.A., Jacob, A.L., Berman, G.J., and Sober, S.J.
bioRxiv, 600874 (2019)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/600874v1

7

Spatial and temporal structure of choice representations in primate prefrontal cortex
Kollmorgen, S., Newsome, W.T., and Mante, V.
bioRxiv, 595520 (2019)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/595520v1

8

Inferring the function performed by a recurrent neural network
Chalk, M., Tkacik, G., and Marre, O.
bioRxiv, 598086 (2019)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/598086v1

Also see this tweet thread.

9

Basal ganglia contributions during the learning of a visuomotor rotation: effect of dopamine, deep brain stimulation and reinforcement
Singh, P., Lenka, A., Stezin, A., Jhunjhunwala, K., Pal, P.K., Ghosal, A., and Murthy, A.
bioRxiv, 599308 (2019)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/599308v1

10

A Visual Exploration of Gaussian Processes: How to turn a collection of small building blocks into a versatile tool for solving regression problems
Görtler J, Kehlbeck R, Duessen O.
Distill (April 2, 2019)
https://doi.org/10.23915/distill.00017

A very good blog-style post on gaussian processes. It’s easy to read and has some nice interactive figures.


Superlab Publications

Here we list new papers by members of the sensoriomotor superlab:

Sequence learning is driven by improvements in motor planning
Ariani, G., and Diedrichsen, J.
J. Neurophysiol.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1152/jn.00041.2019

In two behavioral experiments, we used a sequence production task to uncover elementary components of skilled motor performance. We show that performance improvements are not fully explained by faster single-item selection, nor improved motor execution. Instead, much of the learning can be attributed to an enhanced ability to plan multiple sequence elements into the future.

The effect of response complexity on simple reaction time occurs even with a highly predictable imperative stimulus
Maslovat, D., Klapp, S.T., Forgaard, C.J., Chua, R., and Franks, I.M.
Neurosci. Lett. 704, 62–66 (2019)
https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neulet.2019.03.056


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Disclaimer

Please keep in mind that the appearance of a paper on our reading list should not necessarily be considered an endorsement of the work unless of course we explicitly endorse it, for example in a blurb. These are just papers that have caught our attention this week. As always, please read papers with a critical eye.