Premovement neuronal activity

Premovement neuronal activity in neurophysiological literature refers to neuronal modulations that occur in neuronal firing rates before a subject produces movements. In a typical monkey experiment, an animal is required to withhold the movement until it receives a trigger stimulus. While the animal is doing that, neurons in multiple brain areas are activated. Premovement activity is not thought to reflect a single parameter. Rather, multiple factors were suggested to be involved, such as motor preparation, stimulus and/or reward anticipation, orientation of spatial attention, working memory, inhibition of motor response, programming of the target of movement, temporal processing, corollary discharges and other behavioral variables.