1
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Mitchell JF, Wang KH, Batista AP, Miller CT. An ethologically motivated neurobiology of primate visually-guided reach-to-grasp behavior. Curr Opin Neurobiol 2024; 86:102872. [PMID: 38564829 DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2024.102872] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/07/2023] [Revised: 03/06/2024] [Accepted: 03/08/2024] [Indexed: 04/04/2024]
Abstract
The precision of primate visually guided reaching likely evolved to meet the many challenges faced by living in arboreal environments, yet much of what we know about the underlying primate brain organization derives from a set of highly constrained experimental paradigms. Here we review the role of vision to guide natural reach-to-grasp movements in marmoset monkey prey capture to illustrate the breadth and diversity of these behaviors in ethological contexts, the fast predictive nature of these movements [1,2], and the advantages of this particular primate model to investigate the underlying neural mechanisms in more naturalistic contexts [3]. In addition to their amenability to freely-moving neural recording methods for investigating the neural basis of dynamic ethological behaviors [4,5], marmosets have a smooth neocortical surface that facilitates imaging and array recordings [6,7] in all areas in the primate fronto-parietal network [8,9]. Together, this model organism offers novel opportunities to study the real-world interplay between primate vision and reach-to-grasp dynamics using ethologically motivated neuroscientific experimental designs.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jude F Mitchell
- Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department, University of Rochester, USA; Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester Medical Center, USA.
| | - Kuan Hong Wang
- Department of Neuroscience, University of Rochester Medical Center, USA
| | - Aaron P Batista
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Pittsburgh, USA
| | - Cory T Miller
- Cortical Systems and Behavior Laboratory, Neurosciences Graduate Program, University of California at San Diego, USA.
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2
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Breveglieri R, Borgomaneri S, Bosco A, Filippini M, De Vitis M, Tessari A, Avenanti A, Galletti C, Fattori P. rTMS over the human medial parietal cortex impairs online reaching corrections. Brain Struct Funct 2024; 229:297-310. [PMID: 38141108 PMCID: PMC10917872 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-023-02735-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/03/2023] [Accepted: 11/21/2023] [Indexed: 12/24/2023]
Abstract
Indirect correlational evidence suggests that the posteromedial sector of the human parietal cortex (area hV6A) is involved in reaching corrections. We interfered with hV6A functions using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) while healthy participants performed reaching movements and in-flight adjustments of the hand trajectory in presence of unexpected target shifts. rTMS over hV6A specifically altered action reprogramming, causing deviations of the shifted trajectories, particularly along the vertical dimension (i.e., distance). This study provides evidence of the functional relevance of hV6A in action reprogramming while a sudden event requires a change in performance and shows that hV6A also plays a role in state estimation during reaching. These findings are in line with neurological data showing impairments in actions performed along the distance dimension when lesions occur in the dorsal posterior parietal cortex.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rossella Breveglieri
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza di Porta S. Donato 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy.
| | - Sara Borgomaneri
- Center for studies and research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Cesena Campus, 47521, Cesena, Italy
| | - Annalisa Bosco
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza di Porta S. Donato 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy
- Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Matteo Filippini
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza di Porta S. Donato 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy
- Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - Marina De Vitis
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza di Porta S. Donato 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy
| | - Alessia Tessari
- Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, 40127, Bologna, Italy
| | - Alessio Avenanti
- Center for studies and research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Cesena Campus, 47521, Cesena, Italy
- Center for research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neurosciences, Catholic University of Maule, 3460000, Talca, Chile
| | - Claudio Galletti
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza di Porta S. Donato 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy
| | - Patrizia Fattori
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Piazza di Porta S. Donato 2, 40126, Bologna, Italy
- Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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3
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Bosco A, Filippini M, Borra D, Kirchner EA, Fattori P. Depth and direction effects in the prediction of static and shifted reaching goals from kinematics. Sci Rep 2023; 13:13115. [PMID: 37573413 PMCID: PMC10423273 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-40127-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/11/2023] [Accepted: 08/04/2023] [Indexed: 08/14/2023] Open
Abstract
The kinematic parameters of reach-to-grasp movements are modulated by action intentions. However, when an unexpected change in visual target goal during reaching execution occurs, it is still unknown whether the action intention changes with target goal modification and which is the temporal structure of the target goal prediction. We recorded the kinematics of the pointing finger and wrist during the execution of reaching movements in 23 naïve volunteers where the targets could be located at different directions and depths with respect to the body. During the movement execution, the targets could remain static for the entire duration of movement or shifted, with different timings, to another position. We performed temporal decoding of the final goals and of the intermediate trajectory from the past kinematics exploiting a recurrent neural network. We observed a progressive increase of the classification performance from the onset to the end of movement in both horizontal and sagittal dimensions, as well as in decoding shifted targets. The classification accuracy in decoding horizontal targets was higher than the classification accuracy of sagittal targets. These results are useful for establishing how human and artificial agents could take advantage from the observed kinematics to optimize their cooperation in three-dimensional space.
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Affiliation(s)
- A Bosco
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
- Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
| | - M Filippini
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - D Borra
- Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
| | - E A Kirchner
- Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
- Robotics Innovation Center, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence GmbH, Kaiserslautern, Germany
| | - P Fattori
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
- Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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4
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Nicoli G, Pavon G, Grayson A, Emerson A, Mitra S. Touch may reduce cognitive load during assisted typing by individuals with developmental disabilities. Front Integr Neurosci 2023; 17:1181025. [PMID: 37600233 PMCID: PMC10434793 DOI: 10.3389/fnint.2023.1181025] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/06/2023] [Accepted: 07/20/2023] [Indexed: 08/22/2023] Open
Abstract
Many techniques have attempted to provide physical support to ease the execution of a typing task by individuals with developmental disabilities (DD). These techniques have been controversial due to concerns that the support provider's touch can influence the typed content. The most common interpretation of assisted typing as an ideomotor phenomenon has been qualified recently by studies showing that users with DD make identifiable contributions to the process. This paper suggests a neurophysiological pathway by which touch could lower the cognitive load of seated typing by people with DD. The required sensorimotor processes (stabilizing posture and planning and executing manual reaching movements) and cognitive operations (generating and transcribing linguistic material) place concurrent demands on cognitive resources, particularly executive function (EF). A range of developmental disabilities are characterized by deficits in sensorimotor and EF capacity. As light touch has been shown to facilitate postural coordination, it is proposed that a facilitator's touch could assist the seated typist with sensorimotor and EF deficits by reducing their sensorimotor workload and thereby freeing up shared cognitive resources for the linguistic elements of the task. This is the first theoretical framework for understanding how a facilitator's touch may assist individuals with DD to contribute linguistic content during touch-assisted typing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Giovanni Nicoli
- School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
| | - Giulia Pavon
- School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
| | - Andrew Grayson
- School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
| | - Anne Emerson
- Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
| | - Suvobrata Mitra
- School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, United Kingdom
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5
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Bosco A, Bertini C, Filippini M, Foglino C, Fattori P. Machine learning methods detect arm movement impairments in a patient with parieto-occipital lesion using only early kinematic information. J Vis 2022; 22:3. [PMID: 36069943 PMCID: PMC9465938 DOI: 10.1167/jov.22.10.3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
Patients with lesions of the parieto-occipital cortex typically misreach visual targets that they correctly perceive (optic ataxia). Although optic ataxia was described more than 30 years ago, distinguishing this condition from physiological behavior using kinematic data is still far from being an achievement. Here, combining kinematic analysis with machine learning methods, we compared the reaching performance of a patient with bilateral occipitoparietal damage with that of 10 healthy controls. They performed visually guided reaches toward targets located at different depths and directions. Using the horizontal, sagittal, and vertical deviation of the trajectories, we extracted classification accuracy in discriminating the reaching performance of patient from that of controls. Specifically, accurate predictions of the patient's deviations were detected after the 20% of the movement execution in all the spatial positions tested. This classification based on initial trajectory decoding was possible for both directional and depth components of the movement, suggesting the possibility of applying this method to characterize pathological motor behavior in wider frameworks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Annalisa Bosco
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,
| | - Caterina Bertini
- Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,CsrNC, Centre for Studies and Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,
| | - Matteo Filippini
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,
| | - Caterina Foglino
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,
| | - Patrizia Fattori
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,Alma Mater Research Institute For Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.,
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6
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Abstract
This study demonstrates evidence for a foundational process underlying active vision in older infants during object play. Using head-mounted eye-tracking and motion capture, looks to an object are shown to be tightly linked to and synchronous with a stilled head, regardless of the duration of gaze, for infants 12 to 24 months of age. Despite being a developmental period of rapid and marked changes in motor abilities, the dynamic coordination of head stabilization and sustained gaze to a visual target is developmentally invariant during the examined age range. The findings indicate that looking with an aligned head and eyes is a fundamental property of human vision and highlights the importance of studying looking behavior in freely moving perceivers in everyday contexts, opening new questions about the role of body movement in both typical and atypical development of visual attention.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jeremy I Borjon
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.,
| | - Drew H Abney
- Department of Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA.,
| | - Chen Yu
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.,Department of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin, TX, USA.,
| | - Linda B Smith
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.,School of Psychology, University of East Anglia, East Anglia, UK.,
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7
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Breveglieri R, Bosco A, Borgomaneri S, Tessari A, Galletti C, Avenanti A, Fattori P. Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Over the Human Medial Posterior Parietal Cortex Disrupts Depth Encoding During Reach Planning. Cereb Cortex 2021; 31:267-280. [PMID: 32995831 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhaa224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/27/2020] [Revised: 07/01/2020] [Accepted: 07/23/2020] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Accumulating evidence supports the view that the medial part of the posterior parietal cortex (mPPC) is involved in the planning of reaching, but while plenty of studies investigated reaching performed toward different directions, only a few studied different depths. Here, we investigated the causal role of mPPC (putatively, human area V6A-hV6A) in encoding depth and direction of reaching. Specifically, we applied single-pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the left hV6A at different time points while 15 participants were planning immediate, visually guided reaching by using different eye-hand configurations. We found that TMS delivered over hV6A 200 ms after the Go signal affected the encoding of the depth of reaching by decreasing the accuracy of movements toward targets located farther with respect to the gazed position, but only when they were also far from the body. The effectiveness of both retinotopic (farther with respect to the gaze) and spatial position (far from the body) is in agreement with the presence in the monkey V6A of neurons employing either retinotopic, spatial, or mixed reference frames during reach plan. This work provides the first causal evidence of the critical role of hV6A in the planning of visually guided reaching movements in depth.
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Affiliation(s)
- Rossella Breveglieri
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Annalisa Bosco
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Sara Borgomaneri
- Center for studies and research in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Bologna, 47521 Cesena, Italy.,IRCCS, Santa Lucia Foundation, 00179 Rome, Italy
| | - Alessia Tessari
- Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, 40127 Bologna, Italy
| | - Claudio Galletti
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
| | - Alessio Avenanti
- Center for studies and research in Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Bologna, 47521 Cesena, Italy.,Center for research in Neuropsychology and Cognitive Neurosciences, Catholic University of Maule, 3460000 Talca, Chile
| | - Patrizia Fattori
- Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy
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8
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A Comparative Usability Study of Bare Hand Three-Dimensional Object Selection Techniques in Virtual Environment. Symmetry (Basel) 2020. [DOI: 10.3390/sym12101723] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
Object selection is the basis of natural user–computer interaction (NUI) in a virtual environment (VE). Among the three-dimensional object selection techniques employed in virtual reality (VR), bare hand-based finger clicking interaction and ray-casting are two convenient approaches with a high level of acceptance. This study involved 14 participants, constructed a virtual laboratory environment in VR, and compared the above two finger-based interaction techniques in terms of aspects of the task performance, including the success rate, total reaction time, operational deviation, and accuracy, at different spatial positions. The results indicated that the applicable distance range of finger clicking interaction and finger ray-casting was 0.2 to 1.4 m and over 0.4 m, respectively. Within the shared applicable distance, the finger clicking interaction achieved a shorter total reaction time and higher clicking accuracy. The performance of finger clicking interaction varied remarkably at the center and edge of the horizontal field of view, while no significant difference was found among ray-casting at various horizontal azimuths. The current findings could be directly applied to the application of bare-hand interaction in VR environments.
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9
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Zhang K, Gao D, Qian J. Overestimation and contraction biases of depth information stored in working memory depend on spatial configuration. Br J Psychol 2020; 112:230-246. [PMID: 32621652 DOI: 10.1111/bjop.12456] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/12/2019] [Revised: 04/26/2020] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
Abstract
Depth perception is essential for effective interaction with the environment. Although the accuracy of depth perception has been studied extensively, it is unclear how accurate the depth information is stored in working memory. In this study, we investigated the accuracy and systematic biases of depth representation by a delayed estimation task. The memory array consisted of items presented at various stereoscopic depth positions, and the participants were instructed to estimate the depth position of one target item after a retention interval. We examined the effect of spatial configuration by comparing the memory performance in the whole-display condition where non-target memory items were present during retrieval with that in the single-display condition where non-target memory items were absent. In the single-display condition, we found an overestimation bias that the depth estimates were farther than the corresponding depth positions defined by disparity, and a contraction bias that the stored depth positions near the observer were overestimated and those far from the observer were underestimated. The magnitude of these biases increased with the number of to-be-stored items. However, in the whole-display condition, the overestimation bias was corrected and the contraction bias did not increase with the number of to-be-stored items. Our findings suggested that the number of to-be-stored items could affect the accuracy of depth working memory, and its effect depended crucially on whether the information of spatial configuration of memory display was available at the retrieval stage.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ke Zhang
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.,Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Guangzhou, China
| | - Dingguo Gao
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.,Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Guangzhou, China
| | - Jiehui Qian
- Department of Psychology, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.,Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Social Cognitive Neuroscience and Mental Health, Guangzhou, China
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10
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Facilitation of allocentric coding by virtue of object-semantics. Sci Rep 2019; 9:6263. [PMID: 31000759 PMCID: PMC6472393 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-42735-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/06/2018] [Accepted: 04/05/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022] Open
Abstract
In the field of spatial coding it is well established that we mentally represent objects for action not only relative to ourselves, egocentrically, but also relative to other objects (landmarks), allocentrically. Several factors facilitate allocentric coding, for example, when objects are task-relevant or constitute stable and reliable spatial configurations. What is unknown, however, is how object-semantics facilitate the formation of these spatial configurations and thus allocentric coding. Here we demonstrate that (i) we can quantify the semantic similarity of objects and that (ii) semantically similar objects can serve as a cluster of landmarks that are allocentrically coded. Participants arranged a set of objects based on their semantic similarity. These arrangements were then entered into a similarity analysis. Based on the results, we created two semantic classes of objects, natural and man-made, that we used in a virtual reality experiment. Participants were asked to perform memory-guided reaching movements toward the initial position of a target object in a scene while either semantically congruent or incongruent landmarks were shifted. We found that the reaching endpoints systematically deviated in the direction of landmark shift. Importantly, this effect was stronger for shifts of semantically congruent landmarks. Our findings suggest that object-semantics facilitate allocentric coding by creating stable spatial configurations.
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