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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 31, 2007, 27(44):11877-11887; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3923-07.2007

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
Parieto-Frontal Connectivity during Visually Guided Grasping

Meike J. Grol,^1,2,5 Jasminka Majdandi,^2,3 Klaas E. Stephan,^2,4 Lennart Verhagen,^1,2 H. Chris Dijkerman,¹ Harold Bekkering,^2,3 Frans A. J. Verstraten,¹ and Ivan Toni^2,3

¹Helmholtz Institute, Experimental Psychology, Universiteit Utrecht, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands, ²F. C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging and ³Nijmegen Institute for Cognition and Information, Radboud University Nijmegen, NL-6500 Nijmegen, The Netherlands, ⁴Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging, University College London, London WC1N 3BG, United Kingdom, and ⁵Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, 2300 RC, Leiden, The Netherlands

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Meike J. Grol, Helmholtz Institute, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80125, 3508 TC Utrecht, Email: M.J.Grol{at}lumc.nl; or F. C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, NL-6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Grasping an object requires processing visuospatial information about the extrinsic features (spatial location) and intrinsic features (size, shape, orientation) of the object. Accordingly, manual prehension has been subdivided into a reach component, guiding the hand toward the object on the basis of its extrinsic features, and a grasp component, preshaping the fingers around the center of mass of the object on the basis of its intrinsic features. In neural terms, this distinction has been linked to a dedicated dorsomedial "reaching" circuit and a dorsolateral "grasping" circuit that process extrinsic and intrinsic features, linking occipital areas via parietal regions with the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex, respectively. We have tested an alternative possibility, namely that the relative contribution of the two circuits is related to the degree of on-line control required by the prehension movement.

We used dynamic causal modeling of functional magnetic resonance imaging time series to assess how parieto-frontal connectivity is modulated by planning and executing prehension movements toward objects of different size and width. This experimental manipulation evoked different movements, with different planning and execution phases for the different objects. Crucially, grasping large objects increased inter-regional couplings within the dorsomedial circuit, whereas grasping small objects increased the effective connectivity of a mainly dorsolateral circuit, with a degree of overlap between these circuits. These results argue against the presence of dedicated cerebral circuits for reaching and grasping, suggesting that the contributions of the dorsolateral and the dorsomedial circuits are a function of the degree of on-line control required by the movement.

Key words: reaching; manual prehension; V3A; V6A; anterior intraparietal area; premotor cortex; on-line control

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Received April 24, 2007; accepted Sept. 13, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Meike J. Grol, Helmholtz Institute, University of Utrecht, P.O. Box 80125, 3508 TC Utrecht, Email: M.J.Grol{at}lumc.nl; or F. C. Donders Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, NL-6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				L. Verhagen, H. C. Dijkerman, M. J. Grol, and I. Toni Perceptuo-Motor Interactions during Prehension Movements J. Neurosci., April 30, 2008; 28(18): 4726 - 4735. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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