Abstract
Both hemispheres contribute to motor control beyond the innervation of the contralateral alpha motoneurons. The left hemisphere has been associated with higher-order aspects of motor control like sequencing and temporal processing, the right hemisphere with the transformation of visual information to guide movements in space. In the visuomotor context, empirical evidence regarding the latter has been limited though the right hemisphere’s specialization for visuospatial processing is well-documented in perceptual tasks. This study operationalized temporal and spatial processing demands during visuomotor processing and investigated hemispheric asymmetries in neural activation during the unimanual control of a visual cursor by grip force. Functional asymmetries were investigated separately for visuomotor planning and online control during functional magnetic resonance imaging in 19 young, healthy, right-handed participants. The expected cursor movement was coded with different visual trajectories. During planning when spatial processing demands predominated, activity was right-lateralized in a hand-independent manner in the inferior temporal lobe, occipito-parietal border, and ventral premotor cortex. When temporal processing demands overweighed spatial demands, BOLD responses during planning were left-lateralized in the temporo-parietal junction. During online control of the cursor, right lateralization was not observed. Instead, left lateralization occurred in the intraparietal sulcus. Our results identify movement phase and spatiotemporal demands as important determinants of dynamic hemispheric asymmetries during visuomotor processing. We suggest that, within a bilateral visuomotor network, the right hemisphere exhibits a processing preference for planning global spatial movement features whereas the left hemisphere preferentially times local features of visual movement trajectories and adjusts movement online.
Highlights
Many daily goal-directed actions, especially performed by the hands, occur in a visual context
While most visuomotor studies reported the Functional hemispheric asymmetries of virtual avatar control network without distinction of planning- and online processing-related effects, the present findings showed that the observed blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) response in bilateral visual areas (V4, V5/MT), Inferior parietal lobule (IPL), superior parietal lobe (SPL), PMv, PMd and contralateral M1, cingulate motor area (CMA), putamen and thalamus was better predicted by regressors that were time-locked to planning rather than to online processing
The present study investigated the contribution of spatial and temporal processing demands during visuomotor planning and online visuomotor processing to hemispheric activation asymmetries when controlling virtual avatar movements
Summary
Many daily goal-directed actions, especially performed by the hands, occur in a visual context. Functional hemispheric asymmetries of virtual avatar control point or order of visual events (visuotemporal component). This information can be used to acquire internal action representations and to refine and update actions once a movement is learned [1,2,3,4]. When playing computer games or navigating the computer cursor to a specific location on a screen, a virtual avatar is controlled by the force that is applied to the controller like a mouse, joystick, or touchpad In this context, the actual hand action (e.g. isometric force on a device) is coupled to the movement of a virtual avatar in space.
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