Eye-Hand Coordination: Saccades Are Faster When Accompanied by a Coordinated Arm Movement

When primates reach for an object, they very often direct an eye movement toward the object as well. This pattern of directing both eye and limb movements to the same object appears to be fundamental to eye-hand coordination. We investigated interactions between saccades and reaching movements in a rhesus monkey model system. The amplitude and peak velocity of isolated eye movements are positively correlated with one another. This relationship is called the main sequence. We now report that the main sequence relationship for saccades is changed during coordinated eye and arm movements. In particular, peak eye velocity is approximately 4% faster for the same size saccade when the saccade is accompanied by a coordinated arm movement. Saccade duration is reduced by an equivalent amount. The main sequence relationship is unperturbed when the arm moves simultaneously but in the opposite direction as the eyes, suggesting that eye and arm movements must be tightly coordinated to produce the effect. Candidate areas mediating this interaction include the posterior parietal cortex and the superior colliculus.

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

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1718267115 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 115 (16) ◽

pp. E3817-E3826 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

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.

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Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Disrupts Eye-Hand Interactions in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.2000.84.3.1677 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 84 (3) ◽

pp. 1677-1680 ◽

Cited By ~ 48

Author(s):

Paul Van Donkelaar ◽

Ji-Hang Lee ◽

Anthony S. Drew

Keyword(s):

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Parietal Cortex ◽

Magnetic Stimulation ◽

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Hand Movement ◽

Open Loop ◽

Neurophysiological Studies ◽

Posterior Parietal ◽

Hand Coordination

Recent neurophysiological studies have started to shed some light on the cortical areas that contribute to eye-hand coordination. In the present study we investigated the role of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in this process in normal, healthy subjects. This was accomplished by delivering single pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the PPC to transiently disrupt the putative contribution of this area to the processing of information related to eye-hand coordination. Subjects made open-loop pointing movements accompanied by saccades of the same required amplitude or by saccades that were substantially larger. Without TMS the hand movement amplitude was influenced by the amplitude of the corresponding saccade; hand movements accompanied by larger saccades were larger than those accompanied by smaller saccades. When TMS was applied over the left PPC just prior to the onset of the saccade, a marked reduction in the saccadic influence on manual motor output was observed. TMS delivered at earlier or later periods during the response had no effect. Taken together, these data suggest that the PPC integrates signals related to saccade amplitude with limb movement information just prior to the onset of the saccade.

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Three-dimensional eye position signals shape both peripersonal space and arm movement activity in the medial posterior parietal cortex

Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience ◽

10.3389/fnint.2012.00037 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 6 ◽

Cited By ~ 19

Author(s):

K. Hadjidimitrakis ◽

R. Breveglieri ◽

A. Bosco ◽

P. Fattori

Keyword(s):

Parietal Cortex ◽

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Arm Movement ◽

Peripersonal Space ◽

Eye Position ◽

Movement Activity ◽

Posterior Parietal

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Saccade-Related Activity in the Parietal Reach Region

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.2000.83.2.1099 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 83 (2) ◽

pp. 1099-1102 ◽

Cited By ~ 79

Author(s):

Lawrence H. Snyder ◽

Aaron P. Batista ◽

Richard A. Andersen

Keyword(s):

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Cross Coupling ◽

Delay Period ◽

Frame Of Reference ◽

Eye Position ◽

Related Activity ◽

Position Information ◽

Posterior Parietal ◽

Saccade Task ◽

Hand Coordination

In previous experiments, we showed that cells in the parietal reach region (PRR) in monkey posterior parietal cortex code intended reaching movements in an eye-centered frame of reference. These cells are more active when an arm compared with an eye movement is being planned. Despite this clear preference for arm movements, we now report that PRR neurons also fire around the time of a saccade. Of 206 cells tested, 29% had perisaccadic activity in a delayed-saccade task. Two findings indicate that saccade-related activity does not reflect saccade planning or execution. First, activity is often peri- or postsaccadic but seldom presaccadic. Second, cells with saccade-related activity were no more likely to show strong saccadic delay period activity than cells without saccade-related activity. These findings indicate that PRR cells do not take part in saccade planning. Instead, the saccade-related activity in PRR may reflect cross-coupling between reach and saccade pathways that may be used to facilitate eye-hand coordination. Alternatively, saccade-related activity may reflect eye position information that could be used to maintain an eye-centered representation of intended reach targets across eye movements.

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Functional inhibition across a visuomotor communication channel coordinates looking and reaching

10.1101/2020.06.16.156125 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Maureen A. Hagan ◽

Bijan Pesaran

Keyword(s):

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

General Mechanism ◽

Natural Behavior ◽

Coherent Communication ◽

Functional Inhibition ◽

Gaze Anchoring ◽

Posterior Parietal ◽

Hand Coordination ◽

Beta Frequency ◽

Neuronal Coherence

AbstractUnderstanding how natural behaviors are controlled depends on understanding the neural mechanisms of multiregional communication. Eye-hand coordination, a natural behavior shared by primates, is controlled by the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), a brain structure that expanded substantially in primate evolution. Here, we show that neurons within the saccade and reach regions within PPC communicate over a visuomotor channel to coordinate looking and reaching. During gaze-anchoring behavior, when saccades are transiently-inhibited by coordinated reaches, PPC neuron firing rates covary with beta-frequency (15-25 Hz) neuronal coherence. Decreases in parietal saccade neuron spiking correlated with gaze-anchoring behavior when the channel was “open” and not “closed”. Functional inhibition across beta-frequency-coherent communication channels may be a general mechanism for flexibly coordinating our natural behavior.One Sentence SummaryInhibitory communication through a visuomotor channel mediates the coordination of eye and hand movements.

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A neural network predicting posterior parietal cortex function in the control of goal-directed arm movements

Neural Networks ◽

10.1016/0893-6080(89)90019-1 ◽

1989 ◽

Vol 2 (5) ◽

pp. 351-358 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Otmar Bock

Keyword(s):

Neural Network ◽

Parietal Cortex ◽

Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽

Arm Movements ◽

Posterior Parietal

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

Journal of Neurophysiology ◽

10.1152/jn.00137.2011 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 108 (1) ◽

pp. 187-199 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

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.

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