Integration of Visuospatial and Effector Information during Symbolically Cued Limb Movements in Monkey Lateral Intraparietal Area

Abstract

Natural behavior requires close but flexible coordination between attention, defined as selection for perception, and action. In recent years a distributed network including the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) has been implicated in visuospatial selection for attention and rapid eye movements (saccades), but the relation between the attentional and motor functions of this area remains unclear. Here we tested LIP neurons in a task that involved not an ocular but a manual operant response. Monkeys viewed a display containing one cue and several distractors and reported the orientation of the cue (right-or left-facing) by releasing one of two bars grasped, respectively, with the right or left hand. The movement in this task thus was associated with (cued by), but not directed toward, the visual stimulus. A large majority of neurons responded more when the cue rather than when a distractor was in their receptive field, suggesting that they contribute to the attentional selection of the cue. A fraction of these neurons also was modulated by limb release, thus simultaneously encoding cue location and the active limb. The results suggest that the LIP links behaviorally relevant visual information with motor variables relevant for solving a task in a wide range of circumstances involving goal-directed or symbolically cued movements and eye as well as limb movements. A central function of the LIP may be to coordinate visual and motor selection during a wide variety of behaviors.

Where One Hand Meets the Other: Limb-Specific and Action-Dependent Movement Plans Decoded from Preparatory Signals in Single Human Frontoparietal Brain Areas

“…Moreover, we carefully monitored for trials in which there were small movements of the limb during planning and, when detected, removed these trials from analysis (see Materials and Methods). Although we cannot exclude the possibility that undetected (subthreshold) movements of the non-task arm may explain some component of our results (Soteropoulos et al, 2011), given considerable previous work and findings of a similar nature in monkeys (Cisek et al, 2003;Oristaglio et al, 2006;Ganguly et al, 2009), it provides an unlikely basis for our findings.…”

Associations Between Performance on the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure and Regional Brain Volumes in Children with and without Velocardiofacial Syndrome

“…In both controls and VCFS participants, our data support the involvement of parietal gray and white matter mechanisms in ROCF Copy performance. One central function of the parietal lobes is integrative and mediating interactions between spatial orienting and higher-level, more abstract, cognitive functions (Andersen, 1997;Huk & Shadlen, 2005;Oristaglio et al, 2006;Quintana & Fuster, 1993). Although both groups of children demonstrated associations between ROCF Copy and parietal volumes, typically developing children also demonstrated an association between ROCF Copy and frontal lobe white matter volumes.…”

Limb-Specific Representation for Reaching in the Posterior Parietal Cortex

“…A recent study shows that cells in area LIP are modulated when an animal is visually cued to release a handle, with greater modulation for the contralateral compared with the ipsilateral limb (Oristaglio et al, 2006). It is unclear to what extent this reflects a role in visually guided reaching behavior.…”