Abstract
The extrastriate visual cortex can be divided into functionally distinct temporal and parietal regions, which have been implicated in feature-related (‘what’) and spatial (‘where’) vision, respectively1. Neuropsychological studies of patients with damage to either the temporal or the parietal regions provide support for this functional distinction2,3,4. Given the prevailing modular theoretical framework and the fact that prefrontal cortex receives inputs from both temporal and parietal streams5,6, recent studies have focused on the role of prefrontal cortex in understanding where and how information about object identity is integrated with (or remains segregated from) information about object location7,8,9,10. Here we show that many neurons in primate posterior parietal cortex (the ‘where’ pathway) show sensory shape selectivities to simple, two-dimensional geometric shapes while the animal performs a simple fixation task. In a delayed match-to-sample paradigm, many neuronal units also show significant differences in delay-period activity, and these differences depend on the shape of the sample. These results indicate that units in posterior parietal cortex contribute to attending to and remembering shape features in a way that is independent of eye movements, reaching, or object manipulation. These units show shape selectivity equivalent to any shown in the ventral pathway.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 51 print issues and online access
$199.00 per year
only $3.90 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on SpringerLink
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ungerleider, L. G. & Mishkin, M. in The Analysis of Visual Behavior (eds Ingle, D. J., Goodale, M. A. & Mansfield, R. J. W.) 549–586 (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1982).
Goodale, M. A. & Milner, A. D. Separate visual pathways for perception and action. Trends Neurosci. 15, 20–25 (1992).
Farah, M. J. Visual Agnosia (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1990).
Perenin, M. & Vighetto, A. Optic ataxia: a specific disruption in visuomotor mechanisms. I. Different aspects of the deficit in reaching for objects. Brain 111, 643–674 (1988).
Cavada, C. & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. Posterior parietal cortex in rhesus monkey: II. Evidence for segregated corticocortical networks linking sensory and limbic areas with the frontal lobe. J. Comp. Neurol. 287, 422–445 (1989).
Webster, M. J., Bachevalier, J. & Ungerleider, L. G. Connections of inferior temporal areas TEO and TE with parietal and frontal cortex in macaque. Cerebral Cortex 5, 470–483 (1994).
Wilson, F. A. W., OScalaidhe, S. P. & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. Dissociation of object and spatial processing domains in primate prefrontal cortex. Science 260, 1955–1958 (1993).
Rao, C. S., Rainer, G. & Miller, E. K. Integration of what and where in the primate prefrontal cortex. Science 276, 821–824 (1997).
O Scalaidhe, S. P., Wilson, F. A. W. & Goldman-Rakic, P. S. Areal segregation of face-processing neurons in prefrontal cortex. Science 278, 1135–1138 (1997).
Courtney, S. M., Petit, L., Maisog, J. M., Ungerleider, L. G. & Haxby, J. V. An area specialized for spatial working memory in human frontal cortex. Science 279, 1347–1351 (1998).
Taira, M., Mine, S., Georgopoulos, A. P., Murata, A. & Sakata, H. Parietal cortex neurons of the monkey related to the visual guidance of hand movement. Exp. Brain Res. 83, 29–36 (1990).
Murata, A., Gallese, V., Kaseda, M. & Sakata, H. Parietal neurons related to memory-guided hand manipulation. J. Neurophysiol. 75, 2180–2186 (1996).
Jeannerod, M. The formation of finger grip during prehension. A cortically mediated visuomotor pattern. Behav. Brain Res. 19, 99–116 (1986).
Gallese, V., Murata, A., Kaseda, M., Niki, N. & Sakata, H. Deficit of hand preshaping after muscimol injection in monkey parietal cortex. Neuroreport 5, 1525–1529 (1994).
Barash, S., Bracewell, R. M., Fogassi, L., Gnadt, J. W. & Andersen, R. A. Saccade-related activity in the lateral intraparietal area II. Spatial properties. J. Neurophysiol. 66, 1109–1124 (1991).
Andersen, R. A., Asanuma, C., Essick, G. & Seigel, R. M. Corticocortical connections of anatomically and physiologically defined subdivisions within the inferior parietal lobule. J. Comp. Neurol. 296, 65–113 (1990).
Shadlen, M. Look but don't touch, or vice versa. Nature 386, 122–123 (1997).
Rizzolatti, G., Riggio, L. & Sheliga, B. M. in Attention and Performance XV (eds Umiltà, C. & Moscovitch, M.) 231–265 (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1994).
Colby, C. L. Action-oriented spatial reference frames in cortex. Neuron 20, 15–24 (1998).
Goodale, M. A. et al. Separate neural pathways for the visual analysis of object shape in perception and prehension. Curr. Biol. 4, 604–610 (1994).
Jeannerod, M., Arbib, M. A., Rizzolatti, G. & Sakata, H. Grasping objects: the cortical mechanisms of visuomotor transformation. Trends Neurosci. 18, 314–320 (1995).
Sakata, H., Taira, M., Murata, A. & Mine, S. Neural mechanisms of visual guidance of hand action in the parietal cortex of the monkey. Cerebr. Cortex 5, 429–438 (1995).
Snyder, L. H., Batista, A. P. & Andersen, R. A. Coding of intention in the posterior parietal cortex. Nature 386, 167–170 (1997).
Goldberg, M. E. & Gottlieb, J. Neurons in monkey LIP transmit information about stimulus pattern in the temporal waveform of their discharge. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 23, 17 (1997).
Troscianko, T. et al. Human colour discrimination based on a non-parvocellular pathway. Curr. Biol. 6, 200–210 (1996).
Blatt, G. J., Andersen, R. A. & Stoner, G. R. Visual receptive field organization and cortico-cortical connections of the lateral intraparietal area (area LIP) in the macaque. J. Comp. Neurol. 299, 421–445 (1990).
Acknowledgements
We thank K. Briand, R. Klein, S. Lehky and S. O Scalaidhe for comments on the manuscript. This work was supported by awards from the McDonnell–Pew Foundation, NARSAD, NIMH, and NEI. J.H.R.M. is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Animal experiments were conducted in accordance with the Baylor College of Medicine and Rutgers University Animal Care Committees.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sereno, A., Maunsell, J. Shape selectivity in primate lateral intraparietal cortex. Nature 395, 500–503 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/26752
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/26752
This article is cited by
-
Low-dimensional encoding of decisions in parietal cortex reflects long-term training history
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Evidence accumulation occurs locally in the parietal cortex
Nature Communications (2022)
-
Dynamics of coherent activity between cortical areas defines a two-stage process of top-down attention
Experimental Brain Research (2021)
-
Learned Representation of Implied Serial Order in Posterior Parietal Cortex
Scientific Reports (2020)
-
The Neural Dynamics of Seeing-In
Erkenntnis (2019)
Comments
By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.