Preparatory activity links the frontal eye field response with small amplitude motor unit recruitment of neck muscles during gaze planning. Rungta et al. J Neurophysiol 2021 Aug 1;126(2):451-463

This study shows that the temporal aspects of a motor plan in the oculomotor circuitry can be accessed by peripheral neck muscles hundreds of milliseconds before the instruction to initiate a saccadic eye movement. The coupling between central and peripheral processes during the delay time is mediated by the recruitment pattern of motor units with smaller amplitude. These findings suggest that information processed in cortical areas could be read from periphery before execution.