In this talk, I will introduce our recent research on the understanding of how the motor cortex prepares and executes movements. To address this question, we analyze neuronal firing activity data obtained from the anterior lateral motor cortex (ALM) in rodents during the perceptual delayed response task. Specifically, we focus on neural processing of the information about when to move and where to move. About the timing of movement, we explore ALM activity under different conditions with and without the knowledge about exact timing of a go cue. We demonstrate that the knowledge of exact timing of go can allow ALM to prepare better, in a way to decide where to move more accurately to earn more rewards. About the direction of movement, we investigate the neural processes of decisions on where to move during the preparation of movement, which often involves gathering sensory evidence and making a choice. Throughout the inspection of erroneous behavior, we find that biased choice representation in neural activity may lead to behavioral error, which indicates individual neural processing of sensory and choice information in ALM. Finally, I will wrap up the talk by introducing our on-going work on exploring how ALM populations perform the sequence of movement preparation and execution, associated with the structural property of ALM.