Cortical and reticular contributions to human precision and power grip

Abstract

It is well accepted that the corticospinal tract contributes to the control of finger muscles during precision and power grip in humans but the neural mechanisms involved remain poorly understood. Here, we examined motor evoked potentials elicited by cortical and subcortical stimulation of corticospinal axons (MEPs and CMEPs, respectively) and the activity in intracortical circuits (suppression of voluntary electromyography) and spinal motoneurons (F-waves) in an intrinsic hand muscle during index finger abduction (control task), precision grip, and power grip. We found that the size of MEPs, but not CMEPs, were more suppressed during power grip compared with precision grip and index finger abduction, suggesting a cortical origin for these effects. Notably, intracortical inhibition was more reduced during power grip compared with the other tasks. To further examine the origin of changes in intracortical inhibition we assessed the contribution of the reticular system, which projects to cortical neurons and it is involved in these gripping configurations. An acoustic startle cue, which engages the reticular system, suppressed MEP size during power grip to a lesser extent than during the other tasks and this positively correlated with changes in intracortical inhibition. A startle cue decreased intracortical inhibition, but not CMEPs, during power grip. F-waves remained unchanged across conditions. Our novel findings show that changes in corticospinal excitability present during power grip compared with finer finger manipulations are largely cortical in origin and suggest that the ascending reticular system contributed, at least in part, to these effects.

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