A (14C) Deoxyglucose Study of Somatosensory and Associated Cortical Areas in the Monkey

Abstract

The strategies used by the macaca monkey brain in controlling the performance of a reaching movement to a visual target have been studied by the quantitative autoradiographic 14C-DG method. Experiments on visually intact monkeys reaching to a visual target indicate that V1 and V2 convey visuomotor information to the cortex of the superior temporal and parietoccipital sulci which may encode the position of the moving forelimb, and to the cortex in the ventral part and lateral bank of the intraparietal sulcus which may encode the location of the visual target. The involvement of the medial bank of the intraparietal sulcus in proprioceptive guidance of movement is also suggested on the basis of the parallel metabolic effects estimated in this region and in the forelimb representations of the primary somatosensory and motor cortices. The network including the inferior postarcuate skeletomotor and prearcuate oculomotor cortical fields and the caudal periprincipal area 46 may participate in sensory-to-motor and oculomotor-to-skeletomotor transformations, in parallel with the medial and lateral intraparietal cortices. Experiments on split brain monkeys reaching to visual targets revealed that reaching is always controlled by the hemisphere contralateral to the moving forelimb whether it is visually intact or ‘blind’. Two supplementary mechanisms compensate for the ‘blindness’ of the hemisphere controlling the moving forelimb. First, the information about the location of the target is derived from head and eye movements and is sent to the ‘blind’ hemisphere via inferior parietal cortical areas, while the information about the forelimb position is derived from proprioceptive mechanisms and is sent via the somatosensory and superior parietal cortices. Second, the cerebellar hemispheric extensions of vermian lobules V, VI and VIII, ipsilateral to the moving forelimb, combine visual and oculomotor information about the target position, relayed by the ‘seeing’ cerebral hemisphere, with sensorimotor information concerning cortical intended and peripheral actual movements of the forelimb, and then send this integrated information back to the motor cortex of the ‘blind’ hemisphere, thus enabling it to guide the contralateral forelimb to the target.