Lesions in posterior parietal area 5 in monkeys result in rapid behavioral and cortical plasticity

We examined the effects of focal lesions of posterior parietal area 5 in macaque monkeys on bimanual behavior performed with and without visual guidance. The animals were trained on two reaching tasks and one tactile texture discrimination task. Task 1 simply involved reaching toward and grasping a reward from one of five well positions. Task 2 required the monkey to use both hands simultaneously to obtain a reward. The tactile texture discrimination task required the monkey to signal the roughness of a passively delivered texture using its jaw. After lesions to area 5, the monkeys showed a decrease in hand use for tasks 1 and 2 and an inability to perform task 2 in specific locations in visual space. These deficits recovered within several days. No deficits were observed in the tactile texture discrimination task or in an analgesic control monkey. Electrophysiological recordings made just before the lesion, immediately after the lesion, and 2 months after the lesion demonstrated that cortical areas just rostral to the lesioned area 5, and areas 1 and 2, were topographically reorganized and that receptive fields for neurons in these fields changed location on the body surface. These cortical map changes are correlative and may, in part, contribute to the rapid behavioral recovery observed. The mechanism for such rapid changes may be the unmasking of existing divergent and convergent thalamocortical connections that are part of the normal cortical circuitry.