title: Organization and evolution of parieto-frontal processing streams in macaque monkeys and humans.
abstract: The functional organization of the parieto-frontal system is crucial for understanding cognitive-motor behavior and provides the basis for interpreting the consequences of parietal lesions in humans from a neurobiological perspective. The parieto-frontal connectivity defines some main information streams that, rather than being devoted to restricted functions, underlie a rich behavioral repertoire. Surprisingly, from macaque to humans, evolution has added only a few, new functional streams, increasing however their complexity and encoding power. In fact, the characterization of the conduction times of parietal and frontal areas to different target structures has recently opened a new window on cortical dynamics, suggesting that evolution has amplified the probability of dynamic interactions between the nodes of the network, thanks to communication patterns based on temporally-dispersed conduction delays. This might allow the representation of sensory-motor signals within multiple neural assemblies and reference frames, as to optimize sensory-motor remapping within an action space characterized by different and more complex demands across evolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Rome SAPIENZA, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy. Electronic address: roberto.caminiti@uniroma1.it.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Caminiti
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Brain and Mind Institute, Federal Institute of Technology, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Giorgio M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Innocenti
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Rome SAPIENZA, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy.
authors.forename: Alexandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Battaglia-Mayer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D009415:Nerve Net / Q000502:physiology; D010296:Parietal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*
keywords: Conduction delays; Emergence of areas; Exaptation; Frontal clusters; Frontal cortex; Homology; Parietal clusters; Parietal cortex; Parietal evolution; Parietal lesion; Parietal patients; Parietal streams; Parieto-frontal connections