Unilateral, 3D Arm Movement Kinematics Are Encoded in Ipsilateral Human Cortex

There is increasing evidence that the hemisphere ipsilateral to a moving limb plays a role in planning and executing movements. However, the exact relationship between cortical activity and ipsilateral limb movements is uncertain. We sought to determine whether 3D arm movement kinematics (speed, velocity, and position) could be decoded from cortical signals recorded from the hemisphere ipsilateral to the moving limb. By having invasively monitored patients perform unilateral reaches with each arm, we also compared the encoding of contralateral and ipsilateral limb kinematics from a single cortical hemisphere. In four motor-intact human patients (three male, one female) implanted with electrocorticography electrodes for localization of their epileptic foci, we decoded 3D movement kinematics of both arms with accuracies above chance. Surprisingly, the spatial and spectral encoding of contralateral and ipsilateral limb kinematics was similar, enabling cross-prediction of kinematics between arms. These results clarify our understanding that the ipsilateral hemisphere robustly contributes to motor execution and supports that the information of complex movements is more bihemispherically represented in humans than has been previously understood.