The Contribution of Different Cortical Regions to the Control of Spatially Decoupled Eye-Hand Coordination.

Our brain's ability to flexibly control the communication between the eyes and the hand allows for our successful interaction with the objects located within our environment. This flexibility has been observed in the pattern of neural responses within key regions of the frontoparietal reach network. More specifically, our group has shown how single-unit and oscillatory activity within the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) and the superior parietal lobule (SPL) change contingent on the level of visuomotor compatibility between the eyes and hand.

Decoupling the actions of the eyes from the hand alters beta and gamma synchrony within SPL.

Eye-hand coordination is crucial for our ability to interact with the world around us. However, much of the visually guided reaches that we perform require a spatial decoupling between gaze direction and hand orientation. These complex decoupled reaching movements are in contrast to more standard eye and hand reaching movements in which the eyes and the hand are coupled.

Differences in spectral profiles between rostral and caudal premotor cortex when hand-eye actions are decoupled.

The aim of this research was to understand how the brain controls voluntary movement when not directly interacting with the object of interest. In the present study, we examined the role of premotor cortex in this behavior. The goal of this study was to characterize the oscillatory activity within the caudal and rostral subdivisions of dorsal premotor cortex (PMdc and PMdr) with a change from the most basic reaching movement to one that involves a simple dissociation between the actions of the eyes and hand.