title: Damage to superior parietal cortex impairs pointing in the sagittal plane.
abstract: Neurophysiology and neuroimaging research implicates distinct regions of posterior parietal cortex for reaching versus grasping and for completing these movements in central versus peripheral space. Typically, visuomotor tasks only examine movements made in the frontoparallel plane. We examined a patient with a right superior parietal lesion encompassing the parietal-occipital junction, the intraparietal sulcus and the putative human homologue of V6A on pointing tasks in the sagittal or frontoparallel planes. The patient did not demonstrate a speed-accuracy trade-off, but did show larger times post-peak velocity for all movement directions. Her movements in the sagittal axis were more disordered than movements in the frontoparallel plane. These data indicate a role for superior parietal cortex in fine tuning of visually guided movements and more particularly for movements made back towards the body.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, ON, Canada. jdancker@watarts.uwaterloo.ca
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Danckert
authors.forename: Lana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Goldberg
authors.forename: Carol
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Broderick
mesh_terms: D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006225:Hand; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000473:pathology / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D020521:Stroke / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology