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An ‘automatic pilot’ for the hand in human posterior parietal cortex: toward reinterpreting optic ataxia

Abstract

We designed a protocol distinguishing between automatic and intentional motor reactions to changes in target location triggered at movement onset. In response to target jumps, but not to a similar change cued by a color switch, normal subjects often could not avoid automatically correcting fast aiming movements. This suggests that an ‘automatic pilot’ relying on spatial vision drives fast corrective arm movements that can escape intentional control. In a patient with a bilateral posterior parietal cortex (PPC) lesion, motor corrections could only be slow and deliberate. We propose that ‘on-line’ control is the most specific function of the PPC and that optic ataxia could result from a disruption of automatic hand guidance.

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Figure 1: Corrections made as a function of instruction and stimulus.
Figure 2: Distribution of all movement durations in experiment 1 (to be compared to the occurrence of corrections to target 2; Fig. 1b).
Figure 3: Specific disruption of automatic corrections following a bilateral parietal lesion.
Figure 4: Distribution of all movement durations in experiment 3 (to be compared to the occurrence of corrections to target 2; Fig. 3).
Figure 5: The lesion of patient I.G.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Région Rhône-Alpes and a grant from the Center for Consciousness Research (University of Arizona). The authors thank A.D. Milner, D. Pelisson and C. Prablanc for their comments on a previous version of the manuscript, M. Arzi for the software programming, P. Mazoyer, J.L. Borach, M. Soulier and S. Terronnes for their technical assistance, and patient I.G. for her collaboration.

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Correspondence to Y. Rossetti.

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Pisella, L., Gréa, H., Tilikete, C. et al. An ‘automatic pilot’ for the hand in human posterior parietal cortex: toward reinterpreting optic ataxia. Nat Neurosci 3, 729–736 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/76694

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