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Intracortical Inhibition Within the Primary Motor Cortex Can Be Modulated by Changing the Focus of Attention
Published on: September 11, 2017
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Effector-selective modulation of the effective connectivity within frontoparietal circuits during visuomotor tasks
Federica Bencivenga1,2,3, Maria Giulia Tullo1,4, Teresa Maltempo3,5
1Brain Imaging Laboratory, Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, Via dei Marsi 78, 00185 Roma, Italy.
Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|June 16, 2022
Summary
The dorsal posterior parietal cortex (PPC) has distinct subregions for sensorimotor control. This study reveals how visuomotor networks in the PPC, including the posterior intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and premotor cortex, are modulated by effector type (hand vs. foot).
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Motor Control
Background:
- The functional organization of the dorsal posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in sensorimotor processing remains incompletely understood.
- Disentangling the specific roles of PPC subregions and their fronto-parietal networks is crucial for understanding visuomotor control.
Purpose of the Study:
- To map the large-scale functional organization of the dorsal PPC.
- To differentiate the fronto-parietal networks involved in visuomotor functions, specifically saccades and pointing movements.
- To investigate how effector-specific modulations influence these fronto-parietal networks.
Main Methods:
- Reanalysis of human functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data during saccades, hand, and foot pointing.
- Integration of surface-based activation, resting-state functional connectivity, and effective connectivity analyses.
- Application of dynamic causal modeling (DCM) to infer directed interactions within networks.
Main Results:
- A functional distinction was found between the lateral posterior intraparietal sulcus (lpIPS), preferential for saccades and connected to frontal eye fields (FEF), and the medial posterior intraparietal sulcus (mpIPS), linked to the dorsal premotor cortex (PMd).
- Dynamic causal modeling demonstrated distinct feedforward-feedback loops: lpIPS-FEF for saccades and mpIPS-PMd for pointing.
- Significant differences in network modulation were observed between hand and foot pointing movements, highlighting effector-specific control.
Conclusions:
- The dorsal PPC exhibits specialized fronto-parietal networks for distinct sensorimotor tasks.
- Network functioning is dynamically regulated based on the effector used, with distinct modulations for hand versus foot pointing.
- This provides a refined understanding of the neural basis of effector-dependent visuomotor control within the PPC.
