Article

Transcranial magnetic stimulation disrupts eye-hand interactions in the posterior parietal cortex.

Department of Exercise and Movement Science and Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-1240, USA.
Journal of Neurophysiology (impact factor: 3.32). 10/2000; 84(3):1677-80. pp.1677-80
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT Recent neurophysiological studies have started to shed some light on the cortical areas that contribute to eye-hand coordination. In the present study we investigated the role of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in this process in normal, healthy subjects. This was accomplished by delivering single pulses of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the PPC to transiently disrupt the putative contribution of this area to the processing of information related to eye-hand coordination. Subjects made open-loop pointing movements accompanied by saccades of the same required amplitude or by saccades that were substantially larger. Without TMS the hand movement amplitude was influenced by the amplitude of the corresponding saccade; hand movements accompanied by larger saccades were larger than those accompanied by smaller saccades. When TMS was applied over the left PPC just prior to the onset of the saccade, a marked reduction in the saccadic influence on manual motor output was observed. TMS delivered at earlier or later periods during the response had no effect. Taken together, these data suggest that the PPC integrates signals related to saccade amplitude with limb movement information just prior to the onset of the saccade.

0 0
 · 
0 Bookmarks
 · 
17 Views
  • Source
    Article: Role of the posterior parietal cortex in the initiation of saccades and vergence: right/left functional asymmetry.
    [show abstract] [hide abstract]
    ABSTRACT: This study explored in humans the role of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in saccades, vergence, and combined saccade-vergence movements by means of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). TMS was applied to the right PPC at 80 ms, 90 ms, or 100 ms after target onset in experiment 1, and to the left PPC in experiment 2. Control experiments were also run in which TMS was applied over the primary motor cortex at 90 ms after target onset. Relative to no-TMS trials, TMS over the right PPC prolonged significantly the latency of almost all eye movements (saccades in either direction, convergence, divergence, and components of combined eye movements). Such latency increase was significant mostly when TMS was delivered 90 ms after target onset. In contrast, TMS of the left PPC increased the latency only for saccades to right, convergence, and convergence combined with rightward saccades; latency increase occurred for all time windows of TMS deliver (80, 90, or 100 ms after target onset). TMS over the vertex had no effect on the latency for any type of eye movement. TMS of either the left or the right PPC or of the motor cortex did not alter the accuracy of any type of eye movement. Thus, the effects of TMS on latency are time-, area-, and eye-movement-specific. We suggest that the right PPC is involved primarily in the processing of fixation disengagement, whereas the left PPC participates in the initiation of eye movements via different spatial selective mechanisms that concern exclusively targets to the right and/or to near.
    Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 05/2005; 1039:184-97. · 3.15 Impact Factor
  • Source
    Article: Hand-eye coordination relies on extra-retinal signals: evidence from reactive saccade adaptation.
    [show abstract] [hide abstract]
    ABSTRACT: Execution of a saccadic eye movement towards the goal of a hand pointing movement improves the accuracy of this hand movement. Still controversial is the role of extra-retinal signals, i.e. efference copy of the saccadic command and/or ocular proprioception, in the definition of the hand pointing target. We report here that hand pointing movements produced without visual feedback, with accompanying saccades and towards a target extinguished at saccade onset, were modified after gain change of reactive saccades through saccadic adaptation. As we have previously shown that the adaptation of reactive saccades does not influence the target representations that are common to the eye and the hand motor sub-systems (Cotti J, Guillaume A, Alahyane N, Pelisson D, Vercher JL. Adaptation of voluntary saccades, but not of reactive saccades. Transfers to hand pointing movements. J Neurophysiol 2007;98:602-12), the results of the present study demonstrate that extra-retinal signals participate in defining the target of hand pointing movements.
    Behavioural brain research 03/2011; 218(1):248-52. · 3.22 Impact Factor
  • Source
    Article: Contextual influence of TMS on the latency of saccades and vergence.
    [show abstract] [hide abstract]
    ABSTRACT: This study examines the effects of TMS of the right PPC on the latency of saccades and vergence alone or combined and the role of experimental design. Two designs were used: pure blocks with exclusively no-TMS or TMS trials; mixed blocks in which no-TMS and TMS trials were interleaved; a control study with TMS of the primary motor cortex (pure blocks) was also conducted and showed no effects on latencies. In contrast, in the experiment with TMS of the PPC latencies for TMS trials increased relative to no-TMS trials for almost all eye movements (isolated saccades, convergence, divergence, and for saccade and divergence components of combined eye movements). However, such increase was significant for pure blocks only. In mixed blocks no difference between TMS and no-TMS was found mainly because the latency of no-TMS trials increased relative to corresponding latencies in pure blocks. A second study centered on isolated convergence and divergence confirmed the interaction between block-design and TMS effects, and showed significant TMS/no-TMS differences only for the pure design and for a design in which the rate of TMS trials was high (75%). Again, the absence of difference was due to increase of latency for no-TMS trials in mixed blocks with low rates of TMS trials (50% or 25%), but also to decreased effects for the TMS trials themselves. We conclude that latency of all eye movements, saccades and vergence is highly influenced by the context. Such a contextual factor is the number of TMS versus no-TMS trials within a block; low numbers of TMS trials (50% or less) increases baseline latencies. The design of mixed blocks with 50% or less of TMS trials should not be recommended as it underestimates the direct effects of TMS on cortical processing. In fact, the majority of TMS studies on eye movements do use paradigms with high rates of TMS trials (75% or more). Our study confirms the validity of such paradigms.
    Neuroscience Letters 04/2005; 376(2):87-92. · 2.11 Impact Factor

Keywords

corresponding saccade
 
eye-hand coordination
 
hand movement amplitude
 
hand movements
 
healthy subjects
 
larger saccades
 
left PPC
 
limb movement information
 
manual motor output
 
marked reduction
 
movements
 
normal
 
posterior parietal cortex
 
PPC integrates signals
 
Recent neurophysiological studies
 
saccade amplitude
 
saccades
 
saccadic influence
 
smaller saccades
 
transcranial magnetic stimulation
 

P van Donkelaar