Integration of Vestibular, Visual and Proprioceptive Inputs in the Cerebral Cortex during Movement Control

Abstract

The review of the literature data is devoted to the integration of vestibular, visual and proprioceptive inputs in various areas of the cerebral cortex in humans and monkeys during movement control. Despite the abundance of studies of numerous areas of the cortex with vestibular and sensorimotor inputs, their functions and connections are insufficiently studied and understood. The review provides a relatively detailed analysis of data from recent studies of three areas of the cortex involved in motion control: region 7a of the posterior parietal cortex, in which responses to a combined visual-vestibular stimulus tended to dominate the vestibular input over the visual one; the visual region of the cingulate sulcus, which presumably integrates not only visual and vestibular afferent signals, but also proprioceptive signals from the lower limbs, thereby providing interaction between the sensory and motor systems during locomotion; and the area of the superior parietal lobule, in which the visual and somatic inputs interact, allowing you to control behavior when reaching and grasping an object. It is concluded that it is necessary to combine complex natural tasks with normative behavioral models in future research in order to understand how the brain converts sensory input data into a behavioral format.