Lüder Deecke Explained

Lüder Deecke
Birth Date:22 June 1938
Birth Place:Lohe-Rickelshof, Germany
Citizenship:German-Austrian
Nationality:German-Austrian
Field:Neurology, Clinical neurology, Neurophysiology, Clinical neurophysiology, Neuroscience, Clinical neuroscience
Work Institutions:University of Vienna, Medical University of Vienna
Known For:Bereitschaftspotential and Supplementary motor area
Prizes:Hans-Berger-Award, Prix Théophile Gluge, of the Royal Belgian Academy of Sciences, Brussels

Lüder Deecke (pronounced as /de/; born 22 June 1938) in Lohe-Rickelshof, Germany is a German Austrian neurologist, neuroscientist, teacher and physician whose scientific discoveries have influenced brain research and the treatment and rehabilitation of neurological disorders.

Full professor and head, Department of Clinical Neurology at the University of Vienna Medical University of Vienna, professor emeritus since October 2006, Deecke is also head of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Functional Brain Topography and is the author of a number of books and more than 600 publications in the fields of neurology, clinical neurology, neurophysiology, clinical neurophysiology, neurosciences, brain research, movement disorders, etc.

His early research with Hans Helmut Kornhuber in the mid-1960s led to the discovery of the Bereitschaftspotential (or readiness potential), which is a measure of neural activity in the brain that precedes voluntary movements. This discovery set an important standard in research and rehabilitation of motor systems, and re-introduced the word will in key word registers.

Scientific contribution

In 1964 Deecke performed as doctoral student of Hans Helmut Kornhuber, EEG-recordings in man accompanying volitional movements and actions, and they discovered a slowly increasing activation (negative deflection) in the EEG, which they called Bereitschaftspotential[1]

The term Bereitschaftspotential (BP) can be found in the ‘List of German expressions in English‘. In order to record brain activity prior to an unforeseeable event – which a voluntary movement undoubtedly is – it needs a special method: the reverse averaging, which was invented by Kornhuber and Deecke in the same year (1964). The full paper appeared in 1965[2] and was awarded a Citation Classic.[3]

In 1970 and 1971 Deecke was a research fellow in Toronto, Canada, under John M. Fredrickson. He performed experiments in the vestibular system (sense of balance) with rhesus monkeys and found the thalamic relay nucleus, nucleus ventralis posterior inferior (VPI) for the vestibular projection to the cortex.[4] In a second project, he investigated – with the rhesus monkey – normothermic perfusion as a therapeutic means with spinal cord compression,[5] and as a third project the alterations of the auditory evoked potentials under respiratory stress.[6]

In 1978 a further Citation Classic appeared with the discovery that the supplementary motor area (SMA) is active prior to voluntary actions and also prior to the activation of the primary motor cortex (M1, Brodmann-Area4).[7] This publication established the scientific knowledge that the early component of the Bereitschaftspotential (BP1 or BPearly) is generated by the activity of the SMA. BP1 is bilaterally symmetrical, because always – i.e. also with unilateral actions – the SMAs of both hemispheres are active, further substantiated by subsequent research.[8] The second component of the Bereitschaftspotential (BP2 oder BPlate) is generated by the primary motor cortex M1, and BP2 is asymmetrical with unilateral movements, namely dominant over the contralateral hemisphere. In Ulm, Deecke had projects with the DFG (German Research Foundation), and a productive team with research on the vestibular system and the motor system emerged including vestibular and neck interaction.[9] [10] In 1982 during Deecke's visiting professorship on invitation of Hal Weinberg in Vancouver, the Magnetoencephalographic-(MEG-) analogue of the Bereitschaftspotential, the Bereitschaftsmagnetfeld (Bereitschaftsfield, BF) was first recorded.[11]

From 1985 on in Vienna, Deecke has built his own MEG, the first generation with a five-channel MEG-System, and from 1995 on with the MEG Centre Vienna an MEG-whole head system with 143 channels (CTF Vancouver, Canada) has been established. Deecke and his team were successful to prove the participation of the SMA not only with the early Bereitschaftspotential but also with the Bereitschaftsmagnetfeld (Bereitschaftsfield in the MEG, solving the cancellation problem of the two SMAs opposing each other.[12] [13] In 1984 visual tracking movements were investigated.[14] [15] Evidence was found that the frontal cortex (SMA, prefrontal cortex) gives the starting command of the movement or action and supervises it, but the SMA does not execute the action. The frontal brain (including the SMA) is ‘delegating' this to the ‘expert systems for tracking in the brain‘, namely to the visual cortex and to the M1.[14]

In 2002 the term Bereitschafts-BOLD response was coined by Ross Cunnington et al. in event-related fMRI studies at the Department of Clinical Neurology and the Department of Radiodiagnostics Medical University of Vienna.[16] [17] [18] Thus, according to Deecke und Kornhuber [7],[15],[16] the early component of the BP (BP1 or BPearly) is generated by the following areas: the SMA proper, the pre-SMA and the cingulate motor area, CMA. This is now called anterior mid-cingulate cortex, aMCC. The second component (BP2 or BP late) is generated by the motor cortex (M1). Contrary to earlier views, the intentional activity according to Kornhuber and Deecke does not travel directly from the SMA to motor cortex M1 but is running via the cortico-basalganglio-thalamo-cortical loop in short motor loop. The motor loop has been discovered in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD). Deep brain stimulation improves frontal cortex function in PD patients.[19] This means that the formation of the will has already taken place in the frontal lobe and the preparation and planning of the action has been transferred initially to the unconscious routine processes of the basal ganglia, which do the groundwork for the motor cortex, M1.[20] [21] M1 finally generates the volley for the pyramidal tract, which then enters consciousness. During the early BP, BP1, the action planning is not yet conscious, but during BP2 it is. From this observation Benjamin Libet,[22] postulated that we do not have free will (BP1) but with the control of the action (BP2) we do have free will. However, Kornhuber and Deecke,[23] [24] have shown that consciousness is not a sine qua non for free will. There are conscious and unconscious agendas in the brain, and both are important. The unconscious agendas far outweigh the conscious agendas, consciousness being only the ‘tip of an iceberg’. Therefore, free will is involved with both, the initiation of the action and for the control of the action.[23]

The views of Kornhuber and Deecke upon the SMA and CMA[23] were confirmed in the meantime by Ross Cunnington and his team: The limbic system is always involved in the early planning for action – the matching with the inner needs, the emotional basic state, and our respective mood – has been postulated by Kornhuber and Deecke for quite some time [23] and has been confirmed recently by the Cunnington group.[25] Kornhuber and Deecke have shown that freedom is given, a freedom in degrees of freedom, that humans can regulate up by their own efforts and learning in order to improve their free will, which is not a granted state but a dynamic process.[23]

Awards and recognitions

Publications

Books

See also

References

  1. H. H. Kornhuber, L. Deecke: Hirnpotentialänderungen beim Menschen vor und nach Willkürbewegungen, dargestellt mit Magnetbandspeicherung und Rückwärtsanalyse. In: Pflügers Arch. 281, 1964, S. 52.
  2. H. H. Kornhuber, L. Deecke: Hirnpotentialänderungen bei Willkürbewegungen und passiven Bewegungen des Menschen: Bereitschaftspotential und reafferente Potentiale. In: Pflügers Arch. 284, 1965, S. 1–17; Englisch translation: Kornhuber HH, Deecke L . Brain potential changes in voluntary and passive movements in humans: readiness potential and reafferent potentials . Pflügers Archiv: European Journal of Physiology . 468 . 7 . 1115–24 . 2016 . 27392465 . 10.1007/s00424-016-1852-3 . free ., PDF (accessed October 21, 2016).
  3. H. H. Kornhuber, L. Deecke: Readiness for movement - the Bereitschaftspotential story. In: Current Contents Life Sciences. 33 (4): 14 (1990) and Current Contents Clinical Medicine. 18 (4): 14 (1990)
  4. L. Deecke, DWF Schwarz, JM Fredrickson: Nucleus ventroposterior inferior (VPI) as the vestibular thalamic relay in the rhesus monkey. I. Field potential investigation. Exp Brain Res 20: 88-100 (1974)
  5. [Charles H. Tator|CH Tator]
  6. Deecke L, Goode RC, Whitehead G, Johnson WH, Bryce DP: Hearing under respiratory stress: Latency changes of the human auditory evoked response during hyperventilation, hypoxia, asphyxia, and hypercapnia. Aerospace Med 44: 1106-1111 (1973)
  7. L. Deecke, H. H. Kornhuber: "An electrical sign of participation of the mesial “supplementary” motor cortex in human voluntary finger movements." In: Brain Res. 159, 1978, S. 473–476, (Citation Classic).
  8. Deecke L, Lang W (1996) Generation of movement-related potentials and fields in the supplementary sensorimotor area and the primary motor area. Advances in Neurology, Vol. 70: Supplementary Sensorimotor Area, HO Lüders (Ed) pp 127-146
  9. Mergner T, Deecke L, Becker W (1981) Patterns of vestibular and neck responses and their interaction: A comparison between cat cortical neurons and human psychophysics. Ann NY Acad Sci 374: 361–372
  10. Deecke L (1996) Planning, preparation, execution, and imagery of volitional action, (Introduction/Editorial) in: Deecke L, Lang W, Berthoz A (Eds) Mental representations of motor acts (Special Issue) Cogn Brain Res 3 (2): 59-64
  11. L. Deecke, H. Weinberg, P. Brickett: Magnetic fields of the human brain accompanying voluntary movement. Bereitschaftsmagnetfeld. In: Exp Brain Res. 48, 1982, S. 144–148.
  12. W. Lang, D. Cheyne, R. Kristeva, R. Beisteiner, G. Lindinger, L. Deecke: Three-dimensional localization of SMA activity preceding voluntary movement. A study of electric and magnetic fields in a patient with infarction of the right supplementary motor area. Exp Brain Res 87: 688-695 (1991)
  13. M. Erdler, R. Beisteiner, D. Mayer, T. Kaindl, V. Edward, C. Windischberger, G. Lindinger, L. Deecke: Supplementary motor area activation preceding voluntary movement is detectable with a whole scalp magnetoencephalography system. NeuroImage 11: 697-707 (2000)
  14. M. Lang, W. Lang, B. Heise, L. Deecke, H. H. Kornhuber: Brain potentials related to voluntary hand tracking, motivation and attention. In: Hum Neurobiol. 3, 1984, S. 235–240.
  15. Deecke L, Heise B, Kornhuber HH, Lang M, Lang W (1984) Brain potentials associated with voluntary manual tracking: Bereitschaftspotential, conditioned pre-motion positivity, directed attention potential, and relaxation potential. Anticipatory activity of the limbic and frontal cortex. In: Karrer R, Cohen J, Tueting P (Eds): Brain and information: Event-related potentials. Ann NY Acad Sci, Vol 425: 450-464
  16. R. Cunnington, C. Windischberger, L. Deecke, E. Moser: The use of single event fMRI and fuzzy clustering analysis to examine haemodynamic response time courses in supplementary motor and primary motor cortical areas. Biomed Technik 44 (Suppl 2): 116-119 (1999)
  17. R. Cunnington, C. Windischberger, L. Deecke, E. Moser: The preparation and execution of self-initiated and externally-triggered movement: A study of event-related fMRI. NeuroImage 15: 373-385 (2002)
  18. R. Cunnington, C. Windischberger, L. Deecke, E. Moser: The preparation and readiness for voluntary movement: a high-field event-related fMRI study of the Bereitschafts-BOLD response. NeuroImage 20: 404–412 (2003)
  19. Gerschlager W, Alesch F, Cunnington R, Deecke L, Dirnberger G, Endl W, Lindinger G, Lang W (1999) Bilateral subthalamic nucleus stimulation improves frontal cortex function in Parkinson's disease. An electrophysiological study of the contingent negative variation. Brain 122: 2365-2373
  20. H. H. Kornhuber, L. Deecke: Wille und Gehirn. 2. überarb. Auflage. Edition Sirius/ Aisthesis-Verlag, Bielefeld/ Basel 2009, .
  21. H. H. Kornhuber, L. Deecke: The will and its brain – an appraisal of reasoned free will. University Press of America, Lanham MD, USA 2012, .
  22. B. Libet, C. A. Gleason, E. W. Wright, D. K. Pearl: Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness potential): The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act. In: Brain. 106, 1983, S. 623–642.
  23. Kornhuber HH, Deecke L, Lang W, Lang M, Kornhuber A (1989) Will, volitional action, attention and cerebral potentials in man: Bereitschaftspotential, performance-related potentials, directed attention potential, EEG spectrum changes. Chapter 6 in: Hershberger WA (Ed) Volitional action. Amsterdam, Elsevier (North Holland), pp 107-168
  24. Deecke L, Kornhuber HH (2003) Human freedom, reasoned will, and the brain: The Bereitschaftspotential story. In: M Jahanshahi, M Hallett(Eds) The Bereitschaftspotential, movement-related cortical potentials. Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers New York, pp 283-320
  25. V. T. Nguyen, M. Breakspear, R. Cunnington: Reciprocal interactions of the SMA and cingulate cortex sustain pre-movement activity for voluntary actions. In: J Neurosci. 34, 2014, S. 16397–16407.
  26. Web site: Lüder Deecke Homepage . 2015-06-13 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150530203154/http://www.meduniwien.ac.at/user/lueder.deecke/ . 2015-05-30 . dead .

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