Research
Rockefeller researchers locate abstract thought in the ventral premotor cortex, opening a new decoding target above motor cortex for brain-computer interfaces
Researchers at Rockefeller University's Laboratory of Neural Systems published evidence in Nature that the ventral premotor cortex hosts the neural substrates of abstract symbolic thought, identifying a brain region that mediates between the higher-thinking prefrontal cortex and the action-executing motor cortex. The finding has direct implications for BCI decoding targets: implants placed at the ventral premotor cortex could potentially decode user intent at a higher level of abstraction than current motor-cortex BCIs.