scholarly journals Integration of target and hand position signals in the posterior parietal cortex: effects of workspace and hand vision

2012 ◽  
Vol 108 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher A. Buneo ◽  
Richard A. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Visual Cues ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Single Cells ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Hand Position ◽  
Position Information ◽  
Limb Position ◽  
Posterior Parietal

Previous findings suggest the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) contributes to arm movement planning by transforming target and limb position signals into a desired reach vector. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this transformation remain unclear. In the present study we examined the responses of 109 PPC neurons as movements were planned and executed to visual targets presented over a large portion of the reaching workspace. In contrast to previous studies, movements were made without concurrent visual and somatic cues about the starting position of the hand. For comparison, a subset of neurons was also examined with concurrent visual and somatic hand position cues. We found that single cells integrated target and limb position information in a very consistent manner across the reaching workspace. Approximately two-thirds of the neurons with significantly tuned activity (42/61 and 30/46 for left and right workspaces, respectively) coded targets and initial hand positions separably, indicating no hand-centered encoding, whereas the remaining one-third coded targets and hand positions inseparably, in a manner more consistent with the influence of hand-centered coordinates. The responses of both types of neurons were largely invariant with respect to the presence or absence of visual hand position cues, suggesting their corresponding coordinate frames and gain effects were unaffected by cue integration. The results suggest that the PPC uses a consistent scheme for computing reach vectors in different parts of the workspace that is robust to changes in the availability of somatic and visual cues about hand position.

scholarly journals TMS over posterior parietal cortex disrupts the integration of initial hand position information into the reach plan

2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (9) ◽  
pp. 293-293
Author(s):  
M. Vesia ◽  
D. Henriques ◽  
X. Yan ◽  
L. Sergio ◽  
J. D. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Hand Position ◽  
Position Information ◽  
Posterior Parietal

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Over Human Dorsal–Lateral Posterior Parietal Cortex Disrupts Integration of Hand Position Signals Into the Reach Plan

2008 ◽  
Vol 100 (4) ◽  
pp. 2005-2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Vesia ◽  
Xiaogang Yan ◽  
Denise Y. Henriques ◽  
Lauren E. Sergio ◽  
J. D. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Visual Feedback ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Internal Representation ◽  
Hand Position ◽  
Proprioceptive Information ◽  
New Findings ◽  
Posterior Parietal

Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in the integration of visual and proprioceptive information for the planning of action. We previously reported that single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over dorsal–lateral PPC perturbs the early stages of spatial processing for memory-guided reaching. However, our data did not distinguish whether TMS disrupted the reach goal or the internal estimate of initial hand position needed to calculate the reach vector. To test between these hypotheses, we investigated reaching in six healthy humans during left and right parietal TMS while varying visual feedback of the movement. We reasoned that if TMS were disrupting the internal representation of hand position, visual feedback from the hand might still recalibrate this signal. We tested four viewing conditions: 1) final vision of hand position; 2) full vision of hand position; 3) initial and final vision of hand position; and 4) middle and final vision of hand position. During the final vision condition, left parietal stimulation significantly increased endpoint variability, whereas right parietal stimulation produced a significant leftward shift in both visual fields. However, these errors significantly decreased with visual feedback of the hand during both planning and control stages of the reach movement. These new findings demonstrate that 1) visual feedback of hand position during the planning and early execution of the reach can recalibrate the perturbed signal and, importantly, and 2) TMS over dorsal–lateral PPC does not disrupt the internal representation of the visual goal, but rather the reach vector, or more likely the sense of initial hand position that is used to calculate this vector.

scholarly journals Neural encoding of actual and imagined touch within human posterior parietal cortex

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srinivas Chivukula ◽  
Carey Y Zhang ◽  
Tyson Aflalo ◽  
Matiar Jafari ◽  
Kelsie Pejsa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Body Part ◽  
Neuronal Population ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Trial Participant ◽  
Imagery Task ◽  
Posterior Parietal

In the human posterior parietal cortex (PPC), single units encode high-dimensional information with partially mixed representations that enable small populations of neurons to encode many variables relevant to movement planning, execution, cognition, and perception. Here, we test whether a PPC neuronal population previously demonstrated to encode visual and motor information is similarly engaged in the somatosensory domain. We recorded neurons within the PPC of a human clinical trial participant during actual touch presentation and during a tactile imagery task. Neurons encoded actual touch at short latency with bilateral receptive fields, organized by body part, and covered all tested regions. The tactile imagery task evoked body part-specific responses that shared a neural substrate with actual touch. Our results are the first neuron-level evidence of touch encoding in human PPC and its cognitive engagement during a tactile imagery task, which may reflect semantic processing, attention, sensory anticipation, or imagined touch.

scholarly journals Spatial eye–hand coordination during bimanual reaching is not systematically coded in either LIP or PRR

2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (16) ◽  
pp. E3817-E3826 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Mooshagian ◽  
Lawrence H. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Arm Movement ◽  
Lateral Intraparietal Area ◽  
Temporal Correlations ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
Hand Coordination ◽  
Bimanual Reaching ◽  
Permissive Role

We often orient to where we are about to reach. Spatial and temporal correlations in eye and arm movements may depend on the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Spatial representations of saccade and reach goals preferentially activate cells in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) and the parietal reach region (PRR), respectively. With unimanual reaches, eye and arm movement patterns are highly stereotyped. This makes it difficult to study the neural circuits involved in coordination. Here, we employ bimanual reaching to two different targets. Animals naturally make a saccade first to one target and then the other, resulting in different patterns of limb–gaze coordination on different trials. Remarkably, neither LIP nor PRR cells code which target the eyes will move to first. These results suggest that the parietal cortex plays at best only a permissive role in some aspects of eye–hand coordination and makes the role of LIP in saccade generation unclear.

scholarly journals NEURAL ENCODING OF FELT AND IMAGINED TOUCH WITHIN HUMAN POSTERIOR PARIETAL CORTEX

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Srinivas Chivukula ◽  
Carey Zhang ◽  
Tyson Aflalo ◽  
Matiar Jafari ◽  
Kelsie Pejsa ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Body Part ◽  
Neuronal Population ◽  
Movement Planning ◽  
Trial Participant ◽  
Motor Information ◽  
Posterior Parietal

ABSTRACTIn the human posterior parietal cortex (PPC), single units encode high-dimensional information with partially mixed representations that enable small populations of neurons to encode many variables relevant to movement planning, execution, cognition, and perception. Here we test whether a PPC neuronal population previously demonstrated to encode visual and motor information is similarly selective in the somatosensory domain. We recorded from 1423 neurons within the PPC of a human clinical trial participant during objective touch presentation and during tactile imagery. Neurons encoded experienced touch with bilateral receptive fields, organized by body part, and covered all tested regions. Tactile imagery evoked body part specific responses that shared a neural substrate with experienced touch. Our results are the first neuron level evidence of touch encoding in human PPC and its cognitive engagement during tactile imagery which may reflect semantic processing, sensory anticipation, and imagined touch.

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