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Role of the posterior parietal cortex in updating reaching movements to a visual target

Nature Neuroscience volume 2, pages 563–567 (1999)Cite this article

Abstract

The exact role of posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in visually directed reaching is unknown. We propose that, by building an internal representation of instantaneous hand location, PPC computes a dynamic motor error used by motor centers to correct the ongoing trajectory. With unseen right hands, five subjects pointed to visual targets that either remained stationary or moved during saccadic eye movements. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) was applied over the left PPC during target presentation. Stimulation disrupted path corrections that normally occur in response to target jumps, but had no effect on those directed at stationary targets. Furthermore, left-hand movement corrections were not blocked, ruling out visual or oculomotor effects of stimulation.

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Figure 1: Mean hand paths produced by all subjects (SA–SE) with the right, dominant hand in the non-stimulated (upper row) and stimulated (lower row) conditions.
Figure 2: Influence of the TMS pulse on movement accuracy for the four subjects who showed a total or near-total disruption of trajectory corrections in the stimulated condition.
Figure 3: Mean hand paths produced by all the subjects (SA–SE) using the left, non-dominant hand without (non-stimulated, upper row) or with (stimulated, lower row) TMS.
Figure 4: TMS location sites determined by three-dimensional MRI for all subjects.

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Acknowledgements

Supported by Public Health Service grant NS33504 and a Markey Training grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurology, Emory University School of Medicine, Woodruff Memorial Building, Suite 6000, P.O. drawer V, Atlanta, 30322, Georgia, USA

    M. Desmurget, C. M. Epstein, R. S. Turner, G. E. Alexander & S. T. Grafton

  2. INSERM U94, Espace et Action, 16 av du Doyen Lépine, Bron, 69500, France

    M. Desmurget & C. Prablanc

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  1. M. Desmurget
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Correspondence to S. T. Grafton.

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Desmurget, M., Epstein, C., Turner, R. et al. Role of the posterior parietal cortex in updating reaching movements to a visual target. Nat Neurosci 2, 563–567 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/9219

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