Functional Properties of Grasping-Related Neurons in the Dorsal Premotor Area F2 of the Macaque Monkey

Raos, Vassilis; Umiltá, Maria-Alessandra; Gallese, Vittorio; Fogassi, Leonardo

doi:10.1152/jn.00154.2004

Cited by 173 publications

(172 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…This is in agreement with neurophysiological findings showing that F2 and F5 share similar functional properties and act in concert for the control of grasping (Raos et al. 2004, 2006). In particular, F5 would be mainly devoted to grasp selection, while F2 would monitor hand shaping during the ongoing movement, assuring movement accuracy.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Probing the reaching–grasping network in humans through multivoxel pattern decoding

et al. 2015

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IntroductionThe quest for a putative human homolog of the reaching–grasping network identified in monkeys has been the focus of many neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies in recent years. These studies have shown that the network underlying reaching‐only and reach‐to‐grasp movements includes the superior parieto‐occipital cortex (SPOC), the anterior part of the human intraparietal sulcus (hAIP), the ventral and the dorsal portion of the premotor cortex, and the primary motor cortex (M1). Recent evidence for a wider frontoparietal network coding for different aspects of reaching‐only and reach‐to‐grasp actions calls for a more fine‐grained assessment of the reaching–grasping network in humans by exploiting pattern decoding methods (multivoxel pattern analysis—MVPA).MethodsHere, we used MPVA on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to assess whether regions of the frontoparietal network discriminate between reaching‐only and reach‐to‐grasp actions, natural and constrained grasping, different grasp types, and object sizes. Participants were required to perform either reaching‐only movements or two reach‐to‐grasp types (precision or whole hand grasp) upon spherical objects of different sizes.ResultsMultivoxel pattern analysis highlighted that, independently from the object size, all the selected regions of both hemispheres contribute in coding for grasp type, with the exception of SPOC and the right hAIP. Consistent with recent neurophysiological findings on monkeys, there was no evidence for a clear‐cut distinction between a dorsomedial and a dorsolateral pathway that would be specialized for reaching‐only and reach‐to‐grasp actions, respectively. Nevertheless, the comparison of decoding accuracy across brain areas highlighted their different contributions to reaching‐only and grasping actions.ConclusionsAltogether, our findings enrich the current knowledge regarding the functional role of key brain areas involved in the cortical control of reaching‐only and reach‐to‐grasp actions in humans, by revealing novel fine‐grained distinctions among action types within a wide frontoparietal network.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1988; Raos et al. 2004, 2006). Area F5 plays a primary role in selecting the most appropriate type of grip on the basis of the object affordances provided by AIP, thereby activating a motor representation of that object.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing the reaching–grasping network in humans through multivoxel pattern decoding

et al. 2015

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“…8). This could indicate that object orientation might be represented more optimally elsewhere, e.g., in dorsal premotor cortex (PMd) or parietal area V6A (Raos et al, 2004;Fattori et al, 2009). An off-line analysis of decoder performance revealed moderate improvements when using advanced spike-sorting methods (Fig.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grasp Movement Decoding from Premotor and Parietal Cortex

Townsend¹,

Subasi²,

Scherberger³

2011

J. Neurosci.

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Despite recent advances in harnessing cortical motor-related activity to control computer cursors and robotic devices, the ability to decode and execute different grasping patterns remains a major obstacle. Here we demonstrate a simple Bayesian decoder for real-time classification of grip type and wrist orientation in macaque monkeys that uses higher-order planning signals from anterior intraparietal cortex (AIP) and ventral premotor cortex (area F5). Real-time decoding was based on multiunit signals, which had similar tuning properties to cells in previous single-unit recording studies. Maximum decoding accuracy for two grasp types (power and precision grip) and five wrist orientations was 63% (chance level, 10%). Analysis of decoder performance showed that grip type decoding was highly accurate (90.6%), with most errors occurring during orientation classification. In a subsequent off-line analysis, we found small but significant performance improvements (mean, 6.25 percentage points) when using an optimized spike-sorting method (superparamagnetic clustering). Furthermore, we observed significant differences in the contributions of F5 and AIP for grasp decoding, with F5 being better suited for classification of the grip type and AIP contributing more toward decoding of object orientation. However, optimum decoding performance was maximal when using neural activity simultaneously from both areas. Overall, these results highlight quantitative differences in the functional representation of grasp movements in AIP and F5 and represent a first step toward using these signals for developing functional neural interfaces for hand grasping.

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“…The weak representation of object orientation during movement could indicate that wrist orientation, necessary to align the hand with the object, is perhaps more strongly represented elsewhere, e.g., in dorsal premotor cortex (Raos et al, 2004;Stark et al, 2007). However, object orientation is clearly present in F5, suggesting that it might be necessary for the selection of grip types or for motor coordination.…”

Section: Functional Connectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Context-Specific Grasp Movement Representation in Macaque Ventral Premotor Cortex

Fluet¹,

Baumann²,

Scherberger³

2010

J. Neurosci.

110

109

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Hand grasping requires the transformation of sensory signals to hand movements. Neurons in area F5 (ventral premotor cortex) represent specific grasp movements (e.g., precision grip) as well as object features like orientation, and are involved in movement preparation and execution. Here, we examined how F5 neurons represent context-dependent grasping actions in macaques. We used a delayed grasping task in which animals grasped a handle either with a power or a precision grip depending on context information. Additionally, object orientation was varied to investigate how visual object features are integrated with context information. In 420 neurons from two animals, object orientation and grip type were equally encoded during the instruction epoch (27% and 26% of all cells, respectively). While orientation representation dropped during movement execution, grip type representation increased (20% vs 43%). According to tuning onset and offset, we classified neurons as sensory, sensorimotor, or motor. Grip type tuning was predominantly sensorimotor (28%) or motor (25%), whereas orientation-tuned cells were mainly sensory (11%) or sensorimotor (15%) and often also represented grip type (86%). Conversely, only 44% of grip-type tuned cells were also orientation-tuned. Furthermore, we found marked differences in the incidence of preferred conditions (power vs precision grips and middle vs extreme orientations) and in the anatomical distribution of the various cell classes. These results reveal important differences in how grip type and object orientation is processed in F5 and suggest that anatomically and functionally separable cell classes collaborate to generate hand grasping commands.

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Functional Properties of Grasping-Related Neurons in the Dorsal Premotor Area F2 of the Macaque Monkey

Cited by 173 publications

References 62 publications

Probing the reaching–grasping network in humans through multivoxel pattern decoding

Probing the reaching–grasping network in humans through multivoxel pattern decoding

Grasp Movement Decoding from Premotor and Parietal Cortex

Context-Specific Grasp Movement Representation in Macaque Ventral Premotor Cortex

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