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Abstract
The Dual Visuomotor Channel Theory proposes that manual prehension consists of two temporally integrated movements, each subserved by distinct visuomotor pathways in occipitoparietofrontal cortex. The Reach is mediated by a dorsomedial pathway and transports the hand in relation to the target’s extrinsic properties (i.e., location and orientation). The Grasp is mediated by a dorsolateral pathway and opens, preshapes, and closes the hand in relation to the target’s intrinsic properties (i.e., size and shape). Here, neuropsychological, developmental, and comparative evidence is reviewed to show that the Reach and the Grasp have different evolutionary origins. First, the removal or degradation of vision causes prehension to decompose into its constituent Reach and Grasp components, which are then executed in sequence or isolation. Similar decomposition occurs in optic ataxic patients following cortical injury to the Reach and the Grasp pathways and after corticospinal tract lesions in non-human primates. Second, early non-visual PreReach and PreGrasp movements develop into mature Reach and Grasp movements but are only integrated under visual control after a prolonged developmental period. Third, comparative studies reveal many similarities between stepping movements and the Reach and between food handling movements and the Grasp, suggesting that the Reach and the Grasp are derived from different evolutionary antecedents. The evidence is discussed in relation to the ideas that dual visuomotor channels in primate parietofrontal cortex emerged as a result of distinct evolutionary origins for the Reach and the Grasp; that foveated vision in primates serves to integrate the Reach and the Grasp into a single prehensile act; and, that flexible recombination of discrete Reach and Grasp movements under various forms of sensory and cognitive control can produce adaptive behavior.
Highlights
Prehension, the act of reaching to grasp an object, is used for many everyday functions, the most common of which is to retrieve a food item and place it in the mouth for eating
How did the Reach and the Grasp come to be mediated by different neural substrates? the theory seems to suggest that prehension has not one, but two, evolutionary origins
When visual inputs are limited or disrupted as occurs during early development, under visual occlusion, or following brain injury, prehension decomposes into its constituent movements: a Reach that advances an open hand in order to haptically locate the target and a haptically guided Grasp that shapes the hand and digits for target purchase
Summary
Prehension, the act of reaching to grasp an object, is used for many everyday functions, the most common of which is to retrieve a food item and place it in the mouth for eating. Distinctive changes in prehension have been reported after brain injury as some patients display curious impairments in hand preshaping for grasping despite being able to accurately transport the hand to the location of a visual target. To explain this phenomena Jeannerod [10] proposes that prehension consists of two distinct but temporally integrated movements, a Reach and a Grasp, each mediated by different neural pathways which project from visual to motor cortex via the parietal lobe. The evidence suggests that the Reach and the Grasp are derived from different evolutionary origins and were only recently, in phylogenetic terms, integrated together under visual control in primates
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