Proactive inhibition is marked by differences in the pattern of motor cortex activity during movement preparation and execution

Abstract

Using directional TMS, we find that the human motor cortex flexibly changes its pattern of neural activity depending on the context in which a movement is due to be made. Interestingly, this occurs despite adjusting for reaction time. We also show that state space and dynamical systems models of movement can be noninvasively visualized in humans using TMS, thereby offering a novel method to study these powerful models in humans.