Symposium 2

Abstract

We move within a complex three-dimensional world anchored to objects which we identify and locate in space by using vision. Reaching movements are performed to bring the hand to objects of interest. It is believed that the distributed cortical network underlying visual reaching transforms the information concerning the spatial location of the target into an appropriate motor command. This problem can be decomposed into two related questions, the first of which concerns the substrata whereby visual information reaches the motor apparatus. The second relates to the form of this information, once it is available to frontal motor areas, that is, to the transformation from visual to motor coordinates believed to occur at the interfaces between vision and movement. Both of these questions remain for the most part unanswered. The set of cortical areas and pathways by which the information on target location is relayed from the visual areas of the occipital lobe to the motor areas of the frontal lobe have been identified only recently.