The Role of Neurotransmitters in Sequence Planning

Abstract

Previous studies on skilled sequential movements have found that the brain prepares multiple action sequences at the same time. These sequences undergo competitive queuing to decide which movements are most appropriate. This process is substantial for making our learned motion skill more accurate with perfect fluency. However, it is still ambiguous during motion preparation, whether excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmitters are released in the motor cortex of the body part that will begin the movement series. The research plan was to train participants to do two bimanual movement sequences (finger tapping), one of them starts with the right hand, and the second one begins with the left hand. After that they will be asked during fMRS scanning to do what they were trained from their memory then we will look to see if there is a change in glutamate and GABA between the right and the left motor cortexes. The COVID-19 pandemic affected the original study. So, data from unimanual simple finger-tapping movements has been used to analyse instead. We found that there was no significant glutamate, the combination of glutamine or a glutamate increase in the contralateral motor cortex during finger tapping. Besides, the data of GABA was inappropriate to make the analysis. Therefore, some improvements in the scanning parameters, experimental design, MRS sequences and using a stronger magnetic field are recommended to obtain more satisfying results.