A novel brain pathway that may regulate our ability to make the complex hand movements needed to reach out and manipulate objects in our immediate surroundings has been identified by neuroscientists at the University of Pittsburgh.
Scientists have long believed that the brain signals for those and related movements originate solely from motor areas in the frontal lobe of the brain that control voluntary movement.
The finding was made in a non-human primate model, but researchers say that a similar pathway is conceivable to be there in humans as well.
The results demonstrate that the neural pathway originates not from the frontal lobe, but from the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), a brain region that scientists previously thought was involved only in associating sensory inputs and building a representation of extrapersonal space.
Hand Movement And Motor Function
Senior author Peter Strick, Ph.D., Thomas Detre Professor of Neuroscience, Distinguished Professor and chair of neurobiology, Pitt School of Medicine, and scientific director of the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute (UPBI), said:
“The findings break the hard and fast rule that a furrow in the brain called the central sulcus — a Mississippi River-like separation — splits up the areas controlling sensory and motor function. This has implications for how we understand hand movement and may help us develop better treatments for patients in whom motor function is affected, such as those who have had a stroke. Our study also will have a direct impact on the efforts of researchers studying neural prosthetics and brain computer interfaces."
More than three decades ago, renowned neuroscientist Vernon Mountcastle proposed the presence of a movement control center in the posterior parietal cortex and termed it a ‘command apparatus’ for operation of the limbs, hands and eyes within immediate extrapersonal space.
In the current study, Strick and his team confirm that such a command apparatus exists and demonstrate a new pathway that connects the PPC directly to neurons in the spinal cord that control hand movement.
Posterior Parietal Cortex Wiring
The research team conducted three separate experiments in a non-human primate model to make the discovery.
They first showed that electrical stimulation in a region of the PPC called “lateral area 5” evoked finger and wrist movements in the animal. When they injected a protein marker into lateral area 5, they found that the marker made its way to the spinal cord and ended in the same location where the neurons controlling hand muscles are known to be present, suggesting a connection.
“The wiring and the connections from the PPC to the spinal cord and the hand look extremely similar to those from the frontal lobe that have been extensively studied. Similar form suggests similar function in controlling movement,"
said Jean-Alban Rathelot, Ph.D., a research associate in Strick’s laboratory and the lead author of the new study.
For their final experiment, they used a strain of rabies virus as a ’tracker’ since it has the ability to jump across connected neurons. The team found that when they injected the virus into a hand muscle, it was indeed transported back to neurons in the same region of posterior parietal cortex where stimulation evoked hand movements.
This result demonstrated the existence of a direct pathway from lateral area 5 to spinal cord regions that control hand muscles.
“We know from previous research that individuals who have suffered brain injuries in this area have trouble with dexterous finger movements like finding keys in a bag containing many other things, which strongly supports our findings,"
said Richard Dum, Ph.D., a research associate professor in neurobiology and a co-author of the study.
Strick and his team believe that the multiple pathways for controlling hand movement from the frontal lobe and the PPC could work together to execute one complex hand task or could work in parallel to speed up movement, much like multiple processors in a computer can enhance efficacy.
Jean-Alban Rathelot, Richard P. Duma, and Peter L. Strick
Posterior parietal cortex contains a command apparatus for hand movements
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608132114
Last Updated on November 8, 2022