Jerome N. Sanes

Ph.D., University of Rochester, 1979
Associate Professor (Research)
Department of Neuroscience
211 Metcalf Chemistry
Tel. (401) 863-2523

Research Summary

Seemingly, the brain effortlessly computes signals needed while humans prepare, perform, and learn complex actions. My research investigates the brain processes underlying mechanisms of volition. A current focus of our work is understanding the tactical and strategic role of frontal cortical areas and the basal ganglia in motor learning and adaptation. We study these areas since they have multiple, interconnecting processing pathways that appear to mediate different aspects of voluntary behavior related to performing and learning sequential actions. We have been studying these problems by examining changes in blood flow and neural activity n the frontal lobe when novel movements are performed and learned. Our methods include functional magnetic resonance imaging, recording extracellular and local field potentials from the brain and activity from muscles, computer modeling, and psychophysical analysis of movements.

Publications

Sanes, J.N., Donoghue, J.P., Thangaraj, V. Edelman, R.R. and Warach, S. (1995) Shared neural substrates controlling hand movements in human motor cortex. Science, 268: 1775-1777.
Sanes, J.N. (1994) Neurophysiology of preparation, movement, and imagery. Behaioral and Brain Science, 17: 221-223.
Donoghue, J.P. and Sanes, J.N. (1994) Motor areas of the cerebral cortex. Journal of Clinical Neurophysiology, 11: 382-396.
Sanes, J.N. and Donoghue, J.P. (1993) Oscillations in local field potentials of the primate motor cortex during voluntary movement. Procedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 90: 4470-4474.

Activation patterns in primary motor cortex revealed with functional magnetic resonance imaging when a person moved voluntarily. Images in the top row show blood flow changes in a single imaging slice during thumb (left) or wrist (center) movement. The anatomical image shown at the right indicates the central sulcus (green triangles) for reference. The largest amount of activity (indicated by spots with color intensity coding) occurred in the central sulcus region, though other cortical areas also exhibited activation. The lower row shows the three-dimensional activation pattern in the primary motor cortex during thumb (left) or wrist (center) movements. The right image shows a whole brain image and the area sampled (box, cental sulcus indicated by curving green line). Note that although the activation occurred in similar areas the pattern differs for the two movements.