Contributed Talk Sessions | Poster Sessions | All Posters | Search Papers

Poster Session B: Wednesday, August 13, 1:00 – 4:00 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Neural subspaces for motor planning and execution in Parietal Cortex

Stefano Diomedi¹, Francesco Edoardo Vaccari², Konstantinos Hadjidimitrakis, Patrizia Fattori, Ivilin Peev Stoianov³; ¹National Research Council , ²University of Bologna, ³National Research Council of Italy

Presenter: Stefano Diomedi

Understanding how the brain plans and executes movements remains a major challenge in neuroscience. The superior parietal lobule (SPL), with its central role in sensorimotor integration and visuomotor transformations, is a key region in unraveling these mechanisms. We used dimensionality reduction techniques to investigate the structure of neural subspaces underlying latent dynamics during movement planning and execution in SPL. Specifically, we tested three alternative hypotheses about the relationship between subspaces in the two phases: (i) neural subspaces completely overlap between the two phases; (ii) planning and execution are characterized by independent activity patterns along orthogonal dimensions; and (iii) the dynamics are partially shared and partially exclusive. We analyzed population activity recorded from three SPL areas (V6A, PEc, PE) in macaques performing a delayed reaching task. Our results reveal that in areas V6A and PEc, shared neural patterns coexist with phase-specific subspaces, while in PE, the activity is organized along largely orthogonal subspaces. This distinction reflects the different sensorimotor processing roles of these regions and enhances our understanding of how parietal cortex contributes to motor control.

Topic Area: Memory, Spatial Cognition & Skill Learning

Extended Abstract: Full Text PDF