The Autonomic Nervous System Differentiates Between Levels of Motor Intent and Hand Dominance

Abstract

While attempting to bridge motor control and cognitive science, the nascent field of embodied cognition has primarily addressed intended, goal-oriented actions. Less explored however, have been unintended motions. Such movements tend to occur largely beneath awareness, while contributing to the spontaneous control of redundant degrees of freedom across the body in motion. We posit that the consequences of such unintended actions implicitly contribute to our autonomous sense of action ownership and agency. We question whether biorhythmic activities from these motions are separable from those which intentionally occur. Here we find that fluctuations in the biorhythmic activities of the nervous systems can unambiguously differentiate across levels of intent. More important yet, this differentiation is remarkable when we examine the fluctuations in biorhythmic activity from the autonomic nervous systems. We find that when the action is intended, the heart signal leads the body kinematics signals; but when the action segment spontaneously occurs without instructions, the heart signal lags the bodily kinematics signals. We posit that such differentiation within the nervous system, may be necessary to acquire the sense of action ownership, which in turn, contributes to the sense of agency. We discuss our results while considering their potential translational value.