Abstract
Recent research has shown that neurophysiological activation during action planning depends on the orientation to initial or final action goals for precision grips. However, the neural signature for a distinct class of grasping, power grips, is still unknown. The aim of the present study was to differentiate between cerebral activity, by means of event-related potentials (ERPs), and its temporal organization during power grips executed with an emphasis on either the initial or final parts of movement sequences. In a grasp and transportation task, visual cues emphasized either the grip (the immediate goal) or the target location (the final goal). ERPs differed between immediate and final goal-cued conditions, suggesting different means of operation dependent on goal-relatedness. Differences in mean amplitude occurred earlier for power grips than for recently reported precision grips time-locked to grasping over parieto-occipital areas. Time-locked to final object placement, differences occurred within a similar time window for power and precision grips over frontal areas. These results suggest that a parieto-frontal network of activation is of crucial importance for grasp planning and execution. Our results indicate that power grip preparation and execution for goal-related actions are controlled by similar neural mechanisms as have been observed during precision grips, but with a distinct temporal pattern.
Highlights
The ability to control the movements of our hands is of utmost importance to our daily life
Based on the results of Van Schie and Bekkering [19], we predict that the neural processes for action execution, measured by event-related potentials (ERPs), will differ between immediate goalcued and final goal-cued trials
This study explored the neurophysiological basis of power grips
Summary
The ability to control the movements of our hands is of utmost importance to our daily life. Our hands even give us the ability to communicate using gestures, sign language, or writing messages. Because of their clear importance for human action and interaction, manual movements and manual intelligence have become an important topic in cognitive robotics in recent years. Such complex manual movements require anticipatory control, which seems to be based on cognitive networks in long-term memory [2].
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