Mixed Selectivity in Macaque Medial Parietal Cortex during Eye-Hand Reaching

Summary The activity of neurons of the medial posterior parietal area V6A in macaque monkeys is modulated by many aspects of reach task. In the past, research was mostly focused on modulating the effect of single parameters upon the activity of V6A cells. Here, we used Generalized Linear Models (GLMs) to simultaneously test the contribution of several factors upon V6A cells during a fix-to-reach task. This approach resulted in the definition of a representative “functional fingerprint” for each neuron. We first studied how the features are distributed in the population. Our analysis highlighted the virtual absence of units strictly selective for only one factor and revealed that most cells are characterized by “mixed selectivity.” Then, exploiting our GLM framework, we investigated the dynamics of spatial parameters encoded within V6A. We found that the tuning is not static, but changed along the trial, indicating the sequential occurrence of visuospatial transformations helpful to guide arm movement.
Graphical Abstract
Highlights • The parietal cortex integrates a variety of sensorimotor inputs to guide reaching • GLM disentangled the effect of various reaching parameters upon cell activity • V6A neurons were not functionally clustered, but characterized by mixed selectivity • Spatial selectivity was dynamic and reached its peak during the movement phase
Neuroscience; Behavioral Neuroscience; Biocomputational Method