---
title: "Heart rate deceleration during reaching signals violation of movement expectations"
id: "biorxiv-4-heart-rate-deceleration-reflects-expectation-violation-during-reaching"
canonical_url: "https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/biorxiv-4-heart-rate-deceleration-reflects-expectation-violation-during-reaching"
content_type: "clinical_feed_article"
specialty: "Neurology"
source_name: "bioRxiv (Biomedical Preprints)"
source_url: "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.01.748501v1?rss=1"
published_at: "2026-09-04T12:00:00.000Z"
evidence_level: "Verified Feed"
license: "CC-BY-NC-4.0 / Informational Use"
---
# Heart rate deceleration during reaching signals violation of movement expectations
## Provenance & Clinical Metadata
- **Canonical URL:** https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/biorxiv-4-heart-rate-deceleration-reflects-expectation-violation-during-reaching
- **Specialty:** [Neurology](https://medichelpline.com/clinical-feed/neurology.md)
- **Primary Source:** bioRxiv (Biomedical Preprints)
- **Source URL:** [Original Journal Publication](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.01.748501v1?rss=1)
- **Published At:** 2026-09-04T12:00:00.000Z
- **Evidence Rating:** Verified Feed
## Executive GIST (TL;DR)
- The study used a reaching task with a robotic manipulandum in male and female human participants to separate effects of **movement outcome** and **expectation violation** on heart rate responses. - **Heart rate (HR) deceleration** was confirmed following visuomotor perturbations that induce movement errors, consistent with prior reports. - When contextual cues predicted upcoming movement outcomes, HR deceleration occurred during movement preparation rather than after an error, implicating **expectation** in HR modulation. - Across varying expectation levels for different movement outcomes, HR deceleration correlated with **unexpected** outcomes rather than with the negative valence of outcomes. - Manipulating target width to allow successful reaches despite visuomotor rotations showed HR deceleration was more strongly linked to **task error** (failure to achieve task goal) than to **sensory prediction error** (mismatch in sensory feedback). - Authors conclude that HR responses during movement are more closely tied to violations of movement expectation than to movement error per se. - The findings propose that HR may serve as a physiological marker of expectation-related processing during sensorimotor behavior. - Funding sources and competing interests were declared: several Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grants and Japan Science and Technology Agency; authors declared no competing interests.
## Clinical Analysis & Structured Key Points
Heart rate deceleration reflects expectation violation during reaching | bioRxiv Skip to main content New Results Heart rate deceleration reflects expectation violation during reaching Wei Po Wu , View ORCID Profile Daichi Nozaki , View ORCID Profile Takuji Hayashi doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.01.748501 Wei Po Wu The University of Tokyo Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site Daichi Nozaki The University of Tokyo Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Daichi Nozaki Takuji Hayashi The University of Tokyo Find this author on Google Scholar Find this author on PubMed Search for this author on this site ORCID record for Takuji Hayashi For correspondence: thayashi{at}p.u-tokyo.ac.jp Abstract Info/History Metrics Preview PDF Abstract Heart rate (HR) deceleration occurs following movement error and has been interpreted as an autonomic response to adverse behavioral outcomes. However, movement errors not only represent adverse movement outcomes but may also violate expectations. The present study employed a reaching movement paradigm using a robotic manipulandum in male and female human participants to dissociate the contributions of movement outcome and expectation violation to HR responses. We confirmed that HR deceleration occurred following visuomotor perturbations that induce movement errors, consistent with previous studies. However, when contextual cues predicted upcoming movement outcomes, HR deceleration emerged during movement preparation rather than following movement error, suggesting the involvement of expectation in HR responses. Moreover, across varying levels of expectation for different movement outcomes, HR deceleration was associated with unexpected movement outcomes rather than with the negative valence of movement outcomes. By altering target width to permit successful movements despite visuomotor rotations, we further found that HR deceleration was more strongly associated with task error than with sensory prediction error. Together, these findings indicate that HR responses during movement are more closely associated with violations of movement expectation than with movement error itself. These findings provide a new perspective on autonomic responses during sensorimotor processing and suggest that HR may serve as a physiological marker of expectation-related processing during movement. Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Funder Information Declared Japan Society for the Promotion of Science , JP21H04860 , JP22K19736 , JP23K27958 , JP18K17893 , JP23H03296 Japan Science and Technology Agency, https://ror.org/00097mb19 , JPMJPR23S8 Copyright The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license . Back to top Previous Next Posted September 04, 2026. Download PDF Email Thank you for your interest in spreading the word about bioRxiv. NOTE: Your email address is requested solely to identify you as the sender of this article. Your Email * Your Name * Send To * Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas. You are going to email the following Heart rate deceleration reflects expectation violation during reaching Message Subject (Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from bioRxiv Message Body (Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from the bioRxiv website. Your Personal Message CAPTCHA This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. Share Heart rate deceleration reflects expectation violation during reaching Wei Po Wu , Daichi Nozaki , Takuji Hayashi bioRxiv 2026.09.01.748501; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.01.748501 Share This Article: Copy Citation Tools Heart rate deceleration reflects expectation violation during reaching Wei Po Wu , Daichi Nozaki , Takuji Hayashi bioRxiv 2026.09.01.748501; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.09.01.748501 Citation Manager Formats BibTeX Bookends EasyBib EndNote (tagged) EndNote 8 (xml) Medlars Mendeley Papers RefWorks Tagged Ref Manager RIS Zotero Tweet Widget Facebook Like Google Plus One Subject Areas All Articles Animal Behavior and Cognition (7962) Biochemistry (18614) Bioengineering (14760) Bioinformatics (44108) Biophysics (22441) Cancer Biology (19580) Cell Biology (26727) Clinical Trials (138) Developmental Biology (13895) Ecology (20878) Epidemiology (2067) Evolutionary Biology (25307) Genetics (16093) Genomics (23382) Immunology (18587) Microbiology (42208) Molecular Biology (17937) Neuroscience (92823) Paleontology (693) Pathology (2967) Pharmacology and Toxicology (5060) Physiology (8054) Plant Biology (15897) Scientific Communication and Education (2091) Synthetic Biology (4536) Systems Biology (10180) Zoology (2375)
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