The Human Dorsal Stream Adapts to Real Actions and 3D Shape Processing: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Abstract

We tested whether the control of real actions in an ever-changing environment would show any dependence on prior actions elicited by instructional cues a few seconds before. To this end, adaptation of the functional magnetic resonance imaging signal was measured while human participants sequentially grasped three-dimensional objects in an event-related design, using grasps oriented along the same or a different axis of either the same or a different object shape. We found that the bilateral anterior intraparietal sulcus, an area previously linked to the control of visually guided grasping, along with other areas of the intraparietal sulcus, the left supramarginal gyrus, and the right mid superior parietal lobe showed clear adaptation following both repeated grasps and repeated objects. In contrast, the left ventral premotor cortex and the bilateral dorsal premotor cortex, the two premotor areas often linked to response selection, action planning, and execution, showed only grasp-selective adaptation. These results suggest that, even in real action guidance, parietofrontal areas demonstrate differential involvement in visuomotor processing dependent on whether the action or the object has been previously experienced.