TY - JOUR
T1 - Reaching with the sixth sense
T2 - Vestibular contributions to voluntary motor control in the human right parietal cortex
AU - Reichenbach, Alexandra
AU - Bresciani, Jean Pierre
AU - Bülthoff, Heinrich H.
AU - Thielscher, Axel
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by a PhD scholarship from the Max Planck Society to A.R., and by the WCU (World Class University) and BK21 PLUS Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education . We are thankful to Betty Mohler and Joachim Tesch for their assistance with the technical setup, and to Sonja Cornelsen for her help in data acquisition. The experiment was realized using Cogent Graphics developed by John Romaya at the LON at the Wellcome Department of Imaging Neuroscience, University College London, UK.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Authors.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - The vestibular system constitutes the silent sixth sense: It automatically triggers a variety of vital reflexes to maintain postural and visual stability. Beyond their role in reflexive behavior, vestibular afferents contribute to several perceptual and cognitive functions and also support voluntary control of movements by complementing the other senses to accomplish the movement goal. Investigations into the neural correlates of vestibular contribution to voluntary action in humans are challenging and have progressed far less than research on corresponding visual and proprioceptive involvement. Here, we demonstrate for the first time with event-related TMS that the posterior part of the right medial intraparietal sulcus processes vestibular signals during a goal-directed reaching task with the dominant right hand. This finding suggests a qualitative difference between the processing of vestibular vs. visual and proprioceptive signals for controlling voluntary movements, which are pre-dominantly processed in the left posterior parietal cortex. Furthermore, this study reveals a neural pathway for vestibular input that might be distinct from the processing for reflexive or cognitive functions, and opens a window into their investigation in humans.
AB - The vestibular system constitutes the silent sixth sense: It automatically triggers a variety of vital reflexes to maintain postural and visual stability. Beyond their role in reflexive behavior, vestibular afferents contribute to several perceptual and cognitive functions and also support voluntary control of movements by complementing the other senses to accomplish the movement goal. Investigations into the neural correlates of vestibular contribution to voluntary action in humans are challenging and have progressed far less than research on corresponding visual and proprioceptive involvement. Here, we demonstrate for the first time with event-related TMS that the posterior part of the right medial intraparietal sulcus processes vestibular signals during a goal-directed reaching task with the dominant right hand. This finding suggests a qualitative difference between the processing of vestibular vs. visual and proprioceptive signals for controlling voluntary movements, which are pre-dominantly processed in the left posterior parietal cortex. Furthermore, this study reveals a neural pathway for vestibular input that might be distinct from the processing for reflexive or cognitive functions, and opens a window into their investigation in humans.
KW - Human posterior parietal cortex
KW - Reaching movement
KW - Sensorimotor integration
KW - Transcranial magnetic stimulation
KW - Vestibular afferent
KW - Voluntary movement
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84944096225&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.09.043
DO - 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2015.09.043
M3 - Article
C2 - 26424179
AN - SCOPUS:84944096225
SN - 1053-8119
VL - 124
SP - 869
EP - 875
JO - NeuroImage
JF - NeuroImage
ER -