What is the Intention to Move and When Does It Occur?

Authors

Antonio I. Triggiani, National Institutes of Health
Gabriel Kreiman, Harvard Medical School
Cara Lewis, National Institutes of Health
Uri Maoz, Chapman UniversityFollow
Alfred Mele, Florida State University
Liad Mudrik, Tel Aviv University
Adina L. Roskies, Dartmouth College
Aaron Schurger, Chapman UniversityFollow
Mark Hallett, National Institutes of Health

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-27-2023

Abstract

In 1983 Benjamin Libet and colleagues published a paper apparently challenging the view that the conscious intention to move precedes the brain’s preparation for movement. The experiment initiated debates about the nature of intention, the neurophysiology of movement, and philosophical and legal understanding of free will and moral responsibility. Here we review the concept of “conscious intention” and attempts to measure its timing. Scalp electroencephalographic activity prior to movement, the Bereitschaftspotential, clearly begins prior to the reported onset of conscious intent. However, the interpretation of this finding remains controversial. Numerous studies show that the Libet method for determining intent, W time, is not accurate and may be misleading. We conclude that intention has many different aspects, and although we now understand much more about how the brain makes movements, identifying the time of conscious intention is still elusive.

Comments

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, volume 151, in 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105199

The Creative Commons license below applies only to this version of the article.

Recommended Citation

Triggiani, A. I., Kreiman, G., Lewis, C., Maoz, U., Mele, A., Mudrik, L., Roskies, A. L., Schurger, A., & Hallett, M. (2023). What is the intention to move and when does it occur?. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 151, 105199. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2023.105199

Copyright

Elsevier

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.