LAUSR

Non-human primates, especially rhesus macaques, have been a dominant model to study sensorimotor control of the upper limbs. Indeed, human and macaques have similar hands and homologous neural circuits to mediate manual behavior. However, few studies have systematically and quantitatively compared the manual behaviors of the two species. Such comparison is critical for assessing the validity of using the macaque sensorimotor system as a model of its human counterpart. In this study, we systematically compared the prehensile behaviors of humans and rhesus macaques using an identical experimental setup. We found human and macaque prehension kinematics to be generally similar with a few subtle differences. While the structure of the pre-shaping hand postures is similar in humans and macaques, human postures are more object-specific and human joints are less intercorrelated. Conversely, monkeys demonstrate more stereotypical pre-shaping behaviors that are common across all objects and more variability in their postures across repeated presentations of the same object. Despite these subtle differences in manual behavior between humans and monkeys, our results bolster the use of the macaque model to understand the neural mechanisms of manual dexterity in humans.