Cognition in Sensorimotor Control: Interfacing With the Posterior Parietal Cortex

• Published in: Frontiers in neuroscience Vol. 13; p. 140
• Main Authors: Chivukula, Srinivas, Jafari, Matiar, Aflalo, Tyson, Yong, Nicholas Au, Pouratian, Nader
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 27.02.2019; Frontiers Media S.A
• Subjects: Brain research; Cognitive ability; Cortex (motor); Cortex (parietal); Decision making; Exploration; Eye movements; Human subjects; Interfaces; Memory; motor; Motor task performance; Muscles; Neural coding; Neurons; neuroprosthetics; Neuroscience; Paralysis; peripersonal space; posterior parietal cortex; PPC; Prosthetics; Pyramidal tracts; R&D; Recovery of function; Research & development; Sensorimotor system; Sensory integration; Los Angeles California; United States > US; California; motor; peripersonal space; PPC; neuroprosthetics; decision making; coordinate transformations; posterior parietal cortex
• ISSN: 1662-453X; 1662-4548; 1662-453X
• DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2019.00140

Millions of people worldwide are afflicted with paralysis from a disruption of neural pathways between the brain and the muscles. Because their cortical architecture is often preserved, these patients are able to plan movements despite an inability to execute them. In such people, brain machine interfaces have great potential to restore lost function through neuroprosthetic devices, circumventing dysfunctional corticospinal circuitry. These devices have typically derived control signals from the motor cortex (M1) which provides information highly correlated with desired movement trajectories. However, sensorimotor control simultaneously engages multiple cognitive processes such as intent, state estimation, decision making, and the integration of multisensory feedback. As such, cortical association regions upstream of M1 such as the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) that are involved in higher order behaviors such as planning and learning, rather than in encoding movement itself, may enable enhanced, cognitive control of neuroprosthetics, termed cognitive neural prosthetics (CNPs). We illustrate in this review, through a small sampling, the cognitive functions encoded in the PPC and discuss their neural representation in the context of their relevance to motor neuroprosthetics. We aim to highlight through examples a role for cortical signals from the PPC in developing CNPs, and to inspire future avenues for exploration in their research and development.