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The Journal of Neuroscience, October 1, 2008, 28(40):10081-10089; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3423-08.2008

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Behavioral/Systems/Cognitive
The Posterior Parietal Cortex Encodes in Parallel Both Goals for Double-Reach Sequences

Daniel Baldauf, He Cui, and Richard A. Andersen

Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125

Correspondence should be addressed to Daniel Baldauf, Division of Biology, Mail Code 216-76, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125. Email: daniel{at}vis.caltech.edu

The parietal reach region (PRR) is known to be involved in the preparation of visually guided arm movements to single targets. We explored whether PRR encodes only the target of the next movement or, alternatively, also a subsequent goal in a double-reach sequence. Two monkeys were trained to memorize the locations of two peripheral cues and to prepare for a memory-guided delayed double-reach sequence. On a GO-signal they had to reach in a predefined order to both remembered target locations without breaking eye fixation. The movement goals were arranged such that either the first or the second target was inside the response field of an isolated neuron. We analyzed the neural activity of single cells in PRR during the late memory period between cue offset and the GO-signal. During this memory period, most PRR cells encoded the first as well as the second goal of the planned reaching sequence. The results indicate that the posterior parietal cortex is involved in the spatial planning of more complex action patterns and represents immediate and subsequent movement goals.

Key words: double-reach; motor planning; parietal reach region; movement sequences; sensorimotor; hand; attention

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Received July 20, 2008; accepted Aug. 11, 2008.

Correspondence should be addressed to Daniel Baldauf, Division of Biology, Mail Code 216-76, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125. Email: daniel{at}vis.caltech.edu

This article has been cited by other articles:

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