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Sensory-motor mechanisms in human parietal cortex underlie arbitrary visual decisions

Nature Neuroscience volume 11, pages 1446–1453 (2008)Cite this article

Abstract

The neural mechanism underlying simple perceptual decision-making in monkeys has been recently conceptualized as an integrative process in which sensory evidence supporting different response options accumulates gradually over time. For example, intraparietal neurons accumulate motion information in favor of a specific oculomotor choice over time. It is unclear, however, whether this mechanism generalizes to more complex decisions that are based on arbitrary stimulus-response associations. In a task requiring arbitrary association of visual stimuli (faces or places) with different actions (eye or hand-pointing movements), we found that activity of effector-specific regions in human posterior parietal cortex reflected the 'strength' of the sensory evidence in favor of the preferred response. These regions did not respond to sensory stimuli per se but integrated sensory evidence toward the decision outcome. We conclude that even arbitrary decisions can be mediated by sensory-motor mechanisms that are completely triggered by contextual stimulus-response associations.

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Figure 1: Decision task.
Figure 2: Pointing- and saccade-selective regions in posterior parietal and frontal cortex.
Figure 3: aPRR.
Figure 4: pPRR.
Figure 5: pIPS region.
Figure 6: FRR, SMC and FEF.
Figure 7: Whole brain analysis: sensory evidence and effector selectivity.
Figure 8: Whole brain analysis: sensory evidence.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to E. Lombardi for her assistance in data collection. We also thank C. Lewis and C. Sestieri for technical support on data analysis, and A. Snyder, M. McAvoy and E. Akbudak for software and hardware development. This work was supported by the EU FP6-MEXC-CT-2004-006783 project (Investigations in Brain Sciences Education Network), US National Institute of Mental Health grant R01MH71920-06 and US National Institutes of Health grant NS48013 to M.C., by Italian Ministry of University and Research grant PRIN 2005119851_004 to G.G., and by the 3rd Ph.D. Internationalization Program of the Italian Ministry of University and Research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Sciences and Bioimaging, Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies, G. d'Annunzio Foundation, Via dei Vestini 31, Chieti, 66013, Italy

    Annalisa Tosoni, Gian Luca Romani & Maurizio Corbetta

  2. ITAB, Institute for Advanced Biomedical Technologies, G. d'Annunzio Foundation, Via dei Vestini 31, Chieti, 66013, Italy

    Annalisa Tosoni, Gaspare Galati, Gian Luca Romani & Maurizio Corbetta

  3. Department of Psychology, Sapienza University, Via dei Marsi 78, Roma, 00185, Italy

    Gaspare Galati

  4. Neuroimaging Laboratory, Santa Lucia Foundation, Via Ardeatina 306, Roma, 00179, Italy

    Gaspare Galati

  5. Departments of Neurology, Radiology, Anatomy & Neurobiology, Washington University School of Medicine, 4525 Scott Avenue, St. Louis, 63110, Missouri, USA

    Maurizio Corbetta

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  1. Annalisa Tosoni
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Contributions

A.T., G.G. and M.C. were involved in experimental design. A.T. was responsible for data acquisition and data analysis, and A.T., G.G., G.L.R. and M.C. were involved in data interpretation and writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Annalisa Tosoni.

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Tosoni, A., Galati, G., Romani, G. et al. Sensory-motor mechanisms in human parietal cortex underlie arbitrary visual decisions. Nat Neurosci 11, 1446–1453 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2221

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