An Italian study in monkeys has shed light on how the brain controls natural movements and challenges some existing theories on how the motor system works.

The research, at EARA member the University of Parma and the Sant’Anna School of Pisa, wirelessly recorded the activity of hundreds of neurons in the brain region responsible for voluntary movements in monkeys who were observed expressing themselves with spontaneous actions such as walking, yawning and biting.

Previous studies have only looked at the immobilised brain, making the prediction of how the brain works in natural situations less certain.

And unlike those previous studies, the team saw that specific areas of the brain and single cells do not control specific actions in this brain region, but instead work together.

Luca Bonini, at Parma, said: “According to our results, just as the individual keys of a piano can compose many different melodies, the neurons in the motor areas of our brain create complex synergies, allowing us to organise the variety of spontaneous actions that we are capable of performing, some of which until now were even impossible to study in the laboratory.”

As monkeys share many similarities in their brain and behaviour to humans, these findings may have clinical implications, for example for understanding brain function and use in robotics.