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At what stage of manual visual reaction time does interhemispheric transmission occur: controlled or ballistic?

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Abstract

Interhemispheric transfer (IT) time through the corpus callosum can be measured with a manual reaction time (RT) to lateralized visual stimuli (the so-called Poffenberger paradigm) by subtracting mean RT of faster uncrossed hemifield-hand combinations (not requiring an IT) from slower crossed combinations (requiring an IT). That the corpus callosum is involved in IT has been demonstrated by its dramatic lengthening in patients with a section of the corpus callosum. However, it is still unclear whether the signal transmitted by the corpus callosum concerns perceptual or motor stages of RT. To try and cast light on this question, in a first experiment we tested normal subjects on a partially modified Poffenberger paradigm with stop trials intermingled with go trials. In the former, subjects are supposed to refrain from responding following a stop signal (stop-signal paradigm). This paradigm can tease apart the contribution of the controlled and ballistic stages to overall RT and, used together with the Poffenberger task, enables one to assess the stage at which IT occurs. The controlled stage lies before the point of no return, i.e. the point beyond which the response cannot be inhibited, and concerns perceptual and pre-motor processes, while the ballistic stage occurs after the point of no return and concerns the motoric aspect of the response. We found that the slower responses typically obtained in the crossed conditions were more likely to be inhibited than the faster uncrossed responses and this suggests that IT occurs prior to the point of no return. Since the precise locus of the point of no return is uncertain, in a second experiment we used response force as a dependent variable reflecting the activation of the motor cortex. We found that none of the force parameters studied differed between crossed and uncrossed conditions while the temporal parameters confirmed the presence of an advantage of the uncrossed combinations. Altogether these results suggest that callosal IT of visuomotor information occurs at the stage of controlled (perceptual and pre-motor) processes and rule out the possibility of an IT at the motoric stage.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by COFIN MURST to C.A.M. The technical assistance of Gianni Finizia and Daniele Molinari and the comments of two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurological and Visual Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

    C. Cavina-Pratesi & C. A. Marzi

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Milano La Bicocca, Milan, Italy

    E. Bricolo

  3. CeBiSM (Research Centre of Bioengineering and Motor Science), University of Brescia, Trento and Verona, Italy

    B. Pellegrini

  4. Dipartimento di Scienze Neurologiche e della Visione, Sezione di Fisiologia, Strada Le Grazie 8, 37134, Verona, Italy

    C. A. Marzi

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  1. C. Cavina-Pratesi
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  2. E. Bricolo
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Correspondence to C. A. Marzi.

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Cavina-Pratesi, C., Bricolo, E., Pellegrini, B. et al. At what stage of manual visual reaction time does interhemispheric transmission occur: controlled or ballistic?. Exp Brain Res 155, 220–230 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-003-1712-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-003-1712-1

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