Denis LeBihan, Anne-Lise Paradis, Giorgia Committeri, Luigi Pizzamiglio, Alain Berthoz, Gaspare Galati, Laboratoire de Physiologie de la Perception et de l'Action (LPPA), Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université du Québec à Montréal = University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM), Geometry and Probability for Motion and Action (E-MOTION), Laboratoire d'informatique GRAphique, VIsion et Robotique de Grenoble (GRAVIR - IMAG), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG)-Inria Grenoble - Rhône-Alpes, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria), Service NEUROSPIN (NEUROSPIN), Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris-Saclay, IFR de Neuroimagerie Fonctionnelle (IFR 49), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Service Hospitalier Frédéric Joliot (SHFJ), Human Brain Research Center [Kyoto] (HBRC), Kyoto University [Kyoto], National Institutes of Health [Bethesda] (NIH), Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Joseph Fourier - Grenoble 1 (UJF)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble (INPG)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Inria Grenoble - Rhône-Alpes, Université Paris-Saclay-Direction de Recherche Fondamentale (CEA) (DRF (CEA)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), and Kyoto University
Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to compare the neural correlates of three different types of spatial coding, which are implicated in crucial cognitive functions of our everyday life, such as visuomotor coordination and orientation in topographical space. By manipulating the requested spatial reference during a task of relative distance estimation, we directly compared viewer-centered, object-centered, and landmark-centered spatial coding of the same realistic 3-D information. Common activation was found in bilateral parietal, occipital, and right frontal premotor regions. The retrosplenial and ventromedial occipital–temporal cortex (and parts of the parietal and occipital cortex) were significantly more activated during the landmark-centered condition. The ventrolateral occipital–temporal cortex was particularly involved in object-centered coding. Results strongly demonstrate that viewer-centered (egocentric) coding is restricted to the dorsal stream and connected frontal regions, whereas a coding centered on external references requires both dorsal and ventral regions, depending on the reference being a movable object or a landmark.