Inferring functional organization of posterior parietal cortex circuitry based on information flow

Abstract

Many studies infer the role of neurons by asking what information can be decoded from their activity or by observing the consequences of perturbing their activity. An alternative approach is to consider information flow between neurons. We applied this approach to the Parietal Reach Region (PRR) and the Lateral Intraparietal area (LIP) in posterior parietal cortex. Two complementary methods show that, across a range of reaching tasks, information flows primarily from PRR to LIP but not vice versa. This suggests that PRR determines the spatial goals of coordinated eye and arm movements and instructs LIP of those goals. Based on these findings, we conclude that PRR and LIP operate in a parallel rather than hierarchical manner to plan arm and eye movements, respectively. Similar methodology can be applied to other areas to infer their relative relationships.