scholarly journals Functional links between sensory representations, choice activity, and sensorimotor associations in parietal cortex

eLife ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting-Yu Chang ◽  
Raymond Doudlah ◽  
Byounghoon Kim ◽  
Adhira Sunkara ◽  
Lowell W Thompson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Object Representations ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Sensorimotor Transformations ◽  
Saccade Direction ◽  
3D Representations

Three-dimensional (3D) representations of the environment are often critical for selecting actions that achieve desired goals. The success of these goal-directed actions relies on 3D sensorimotor transformations that are experience-dependent. Here we investigated the relationships between the robustness of 3D visual representations, choice-related activity, and motor-related activity in parietal cortex. Macaque monkeys performed an eight-alternative 3D orientation discrimination task and a visually guided saccade task while we recorded from the caudal intraparietal area using laminar probes. We found that neurons with more robust 3D visual representations preferentially carried choice-related activity. Following the onset of choice-related activity, the robustness of the 3D representations further increased for those neurons. We additionally found that 3D orientation and saccade direction preferences aligned, particularly for neurons with choice-related activity, reflecting an experience-dependent sensorimotor association. These findings reveal previously unrecognized links between the fidelity of ecologically relevant object representations, choice-related activity, and motor-related activity.

scholarly journals Choice activity stabilizes sensory representations and mediates sensorimotor associations in parietal cortex

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ting-Yu Chang ◽  
Raymond Doudlah ◽  
Byounghoon Kim ◽  
Adhira Sunkara ◽  
Meghan Lowe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Object Representations ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Spatial Features ◽  
Saccade Direction ◽  
Saccade Task ◽  
3D Representations

AbstractSelecting actions which achieve desired goals often requires three-dimensional (3D) representations of the environment. Because the sensory epithelia cannot directly encode the world’s 3D spatial features, sensory signals must be converted into 3D representations. Here we investigated the relationships between the quality of 3D visual representations, choice-related activity, and motor-related activity in the parietal cortex of macaque monkeys using an eight-alternative 3D orientation discrimination task, visually guided saccade task, and laminar probe recordings. We found that choice activity was preferentially carried by caudal intraparietal area neurons with more robust 3D representations. Choice activity further stabilized the 3D representations, rather than attenuating information not directly relevant to the behavioral task (nuisance variables). An experience-dependent, sensorimotor association additionally aligned sensory and saccade direction preferences, particularly for neurons with choice activity. These findings reveal novel roles for choice activity in improving the fidelity of ecologically relevant object representations and mediating sensorimotor associations.

scholarly journals Choice-Related Activity during Visual Slant Discrimination in Macaque CIP but Not V3A

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Caitlin Elmore ◽  
Ari Rosenberg ◽  
Gregory C. DeAngelis ◽  
Dora E. Angelaki
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Discrimination Task ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Surface Orientation ◽  
Orientation Discrimination ◽  
Visual Orientation ◽  
Planar Surface ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
Planar Surfaces ◽  
3D Surface

AbstractCreating three-dimensional (3D) representations of the world from two-dimensional retinal images is fundamental to many visual guided behaviors including reaching and grasping. A critical component of this process is determining the 3D orientation of objects. Previous studies have shown that neurons in the caudal intraparietal area (CIP) of the macaque monkey represent 3D planar surface orientation (i.e., slant and tilt). Here we compare the responses of neurons in areas V3A (which is implicated in 3D visual processing and which precedes CIP in the visual hierarchy) and CIP to 3D oriented planar surfaces. We then examine whether activity in these areas correlates with perception during a fine slant discrimination task in which monkeys report if the top of a surface is slanted towards or away from them. Although we find that V3A and CIP neurons show similar sensitivity to planar surface orientation, significant choice-related activity during the slant discrimination task is rare in V3A but prominent in CIP. These results implicate both V3A and CIP in the representation of 3D surface orientation, and suggest a functional dissociation between the areas based on slant-related decision signals.Significance StatementSurface orientation perception is fundamental to visually guided behaviors such as reaching, grasping, and navigation. Previous studies implicate the caudal intraparietal area (CIP) in the representation of 3D surface orientation. Here we show that responses to 3D oriented planar surfaces are similar in CIP and V3A, which precedes CIP in the cortical hierarchy. However, we also find a qualitative distinction between the two areas: only CIP neurons show robust choice-related activity during a fine visual orientation discrimination task.

scholarly journals Change in Motor Plan, Without a Change in the Spatial Locus of Attention, Modulates Activity in Posterior Parietal Cortex

1998 ◽  
Vol 79 (5) ◽  
pp. 2814-2819 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence H. Snyder ◽  
Aaron P. Batista ◽  
Richard A. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Macaque Monkey ◽  
Case Control ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Lateral Intraparietal Area ◽  
Central Target ◽  
Motor Plan ◽  
Motor Intention ◽  
Posterior Parietal

Snyder, Lawrence H., Aaron P. Batista, and Richard A. Andersen. Change in motor plan, without a change in the spatial locus of attention, modulates activity in posterior parietal cortex. J. Neurophysiol. 79: 2814–2819, 1998. The lateral intraparietal area (LIP) of macaque monkey, and a parietal reach region (PRR) medial and posterior to LIP, code the intention to make visually guided eye and arm movements, respectively. We studied the effect of changing the motor plan, without changing the locus of attention, on single neurons in these two areas. A central target was fixated while one or two sequential flashes occurred in the periphery. The first appeared either within the response field of the neuron being recorded or else on the opposite side of the fixation point. Animals planned a saccade (red flash) or reach (green flash) to the flash location. In some trials, a second flash 750 ms later could change the motor plan but never shifted attention: second flashes always occurred at the same location as the preceding first flash. Responses in LIP were larger when a saccade was instructed ( n = 20 cells), whereas responses in PRR were larger when a reach was instructed ( n = 17). This motor preference was observed for both first flashes and second flashes. In addition, the response to a second flash depended on whether it affirmed or countermanded the first flash; second flash responses were diminished only in the former case. Control experiments indicated that this differential effect was not due to stimulus novelty. These findings support a role for posterior parietal cortex in coding specific motor intention and are consistent with a possible role in the nonspatial shifting of motor intention.

scholarly journals Decision and navigation in mouse parietal cortex

eLife ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Krumin ◽  
Julie J Lee ◽  
Kenneth D Harris ◽  
Matteo Carandini
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Large Fraction ◽  
Spatial Position ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Virtual Navigation ◽  
Navigation Task ◽  
Measured Activity ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
Heading Angle

Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has been implicated in navigation, in the control of movement, and in visually-guided decisions. To relate these views, we measured activity in PPC while mice performed a virtual navigation task driven by visual decisions. PPC neurons were selective for specific combinations of the animal's spatial position and heading angle. This selectivity closely predicted both the activity of individual PPC neurons, and the arrangement of their collective firing patterns in choice-selective sequences. These sequences reflected PPC encoding of the animal’s navigation trajectory. Using decision as a predictor instead of heading yielded worse fits, and using it in addition to heading only slightly improved the fits. Alternative models based on visual or motor variables were inferior. We conclude that when mice use vision to choose their trajectories, a large fraction of parietal cortex activity can be predicted from simple attributes such as spatial position and heading.

scholarly journals Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Over the Human Medial Posterior Parietal Cortex Disrupts Depth Encoding During Reach Planning

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 267-280
Author(s):  
Rossella Breveglieri ◽  
Annalisa Bosco ◽  
Sara Borgomaneri ◽  
Alessia Tessari ◽  
Claudio Galletti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Magnetic Stimulation ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Visually Guided Reaching ◽  
Posterior Parietal

Abstract Accumulating evidence supports the view that the medial part of the posterior parietal cortex (mPPC) is involved in the planning of reaching, but while plenty of studies investigated reaching performed toward different directions, only a few studied different depths. Here, we investigated the causal role of mPPC (putatively, human area V6A–hV6A) in encoding depth and direction of reaching. Specifically, we applied single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the left hV6A at different time points while 15 participants were planning immediate, visually guided reaching by using different eye-hand configurations. We found that TMS delivered over hV6A 200 ms after the Go signal affected the encoding of the depth of reaching by decreasing the accuracy of movements toward targets located farther with respect to the gazed position, but only when they were also far from the body. The effectiveness of both retinotopic (farther with respect to the gaze) and spatial position (far from the body) is in agreement with the presence in the monkey V6A of neurons employing either retinotopic, spatial, or mixed reference frames during reach plan. This work provides the first causal evidence of the critical role of hV6A in the planning of visually guided reaching movements in depth.

Quick phases control ocular torsion during smooth pursuit

2011 ◽  
Vol 106 (5) ◽  
pp. 2151-2166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard J. M. Hess ◽  
Jakob S. Thomassen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Field ◽  
Rotation Axis ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Oculomotor Control ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Open Questions ◽  
Spatial Frequencies ◽  
Eye Rotation ◽  
Smooth Tracking

One of the open questions in oculomotor control of visually guided eye movements is whether it is possible to smoothly track a target along a curvilinear path across the visual field without changing the torsional stance of the eye. We show in an experimental study of three-dimensional eye movements in subhuman primates ( Macaca mulatta) that although the pursuit system is able to smoothly change the orbital orientation of the eye's rotation axis, the smooth ocular motion was interrupted every few hundred milliseconds by a small quick phase with amplitude <1.5° while the animal tracked a target along a circle or ellipse. Specifically, during circular pursuit of targets moving at different angular eccentricities (5°, 10°, and 15°) relative to straight ahead at spatial frequencies of 0.067 and 0.1 Hz, the torsional amplitude of the intervening quick phases was typically around 1° or smaller and changed direction for clockwise vs. counterclockwise tracking. Reverse computations of the eye rotation based on the recorded angular eye velocity showed that the quick phases facilitate the overall control of ocular orientation in the roll plane, thereby minimizing torsional disturbances of the visual field. On the basis of a detailed kinematic analysis, we suggest that quick phases during curvilinear smooth tracking serve to minimize deviations from Donders' law, which are inevitable due to the spherical configuration space of smooth eye movements.

scholarly journals Spatial Transformations in the Parietal Cortex Using Basis Functions

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Pouget ◽  
Terrence J. Sejnowski
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Reference Frames ◽  
Gaussian Function ◽  
Basis Functions ◽  
Basis Set ◽  
Large Set ◽  
Sigmoid Function ◽  
Computationally Efficient ◽  
Function Decomposition ◽  
Sensorimotor Transformations

Sensorimotor transformations are nonlinear mappings of sensory inputs to motor responses. We explore here the possibility that the responses of single neurons in the parietal cortex serve as basis functions for these transformations. Basis function decomposition is a general method for approximating nonlinear functions that is computationally efficient and well suited for adaptive modification. In particular, the responses of single parietal neurons can be approximated by the product of a Gaussian function of retinal location and a sigmoid function of eye position, called a gain field. A large set of such functions forms a basis set that can be used to perform an arbitrary motor response through a direct projection. We compare this hypothesis with other approaches that are commonly used to model population codes, such as computational maps and vectorial representations. Neither of these alternatives can fully account for the responses of parietal neurons, and they are computationally less efficient for nonlinear transformations. Basis functions also have the advantage of not depending on any coordinate system or reference frame. As a consequence, the position of an object can be represented in multiple reference frames simultaneously, a property consistent with the behavior of hemineglect patients with lesions in the parietal cortex.

Differential and inverse kinematics of robot devices using conformal geometric algebra

Robotica ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eduardo Bayro-Corrochano ◽  
Julio Zamora-Esquivel
Keyword(s):  
Stereo Vision ◽  
Geometric Algebra ◽  
Inverse Kinematics ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Conformal Geometric Algebra ◽  
Robot Arm ◽  
Standard Formulation ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Interesting Application ◽  
Differential Control

In this paper, the authors use the conformal geometric algebra in robotics. This paper computes the inverse kinematics of a robot arm and the differential kinematics of a pan–tilt unit using a language of spheres showing how we can simplify the complexity of the computations.This work introduces a new geometric Jacobian in terms of bivectors, which is by far more effective in its representation as the standard Jacobian because its derivation is done in terms of the projections of the involved points onto the line axes. Furthermore, unlike the standard formulation, our Jacobian can be used for any kind of robot joints.In this framework, we deal with various tasks of three-dimensional (3D) object manipulation, which is assisted by stereo-vision. All these computations are carried out using real images captured by a robot binocular head, and the manipulation is done by a five degree of freedom (DOF) robot arm mounted on a mobile robot. In addition to this, we show a very interesting application of the geometric Jacobian for differential control of the binocular head. We strongly believe that the framework of conformal geometric algebra can generally be of great advantage for visually guided robotics.

scholarly journals Neurophysiology of Prehension. I. Posterior Parietal Cortex and Object-Oriented Hand Behaviors

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (1) ◽  
pp. 387-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esther P. Gardner ◽  
K. Srinivasa Babu ◽  
Shari D. Reitzen ◽  
Soumya Ghosh ◽  
Alice S. Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Related Area ◽  
Firing Rates ◽  
Sensorimotor Transformations ◽  
Area 5 ◽  
On Line ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
Neuronal Spike Trains ◽  
Task Goals

Hand manipulation neurons in areas 5 and 7b/anterior intraparietal area (AIP) of posterior parietal cortex were analyzed in three macaque monkeys during a trained prehension task. Digital video recordings of hand kinematics synchronized to neuronal spike trains were used to correlate firing rates of 128 neurons with hand actions as the animals grasped and lifted rectangular and round objects. We distinguished seven task stages: approach, contact, grasp, lift, hold, lower, and relax. Posterior parietal cortex (PPC) firing rates were highest during object acquisition; 88% of task-related area 5 neurons and 77% in AIP/7b fired maximally during stages 1, 2, or 3. Firing rates rose 200–500 ms before contact, peaked at contact, and declined after grasp was secured. 83% of area 5 neurons and 72% in AIP/7b showed significant increases in mean rates during approach as the fingers were preshaped for grasp. Somatosensory signals at contact provided feedback concerning the accuracy of reach and helped guide the hand to grasp sites. In error trials, tactile information was used to abort grasp, or to initiate corrective actions to achieve task goals. Firing rates declined as lift began. 41% of area 5 neurons and 38% in AIP/7b were inhibited during holding, and returned to baseline when grasp was relaxed. Anatomical connections suggest that area 5 provides somesthetic information to circuits linking AIP/7b to frontal motor areas involved in grasping. Area 5 may also participate in sensorimotor transformations coordinating reach and grasp behaviors and provide on-line feedback needed for goal-directed hand movements.

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