Bilateral decision networks for eye and arm movements

• Applicant: Dr. Igor Kagan
• Subject Area: Cognitive, Systems and Behavioural Neurobiology
• Term: from 2013 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 211740722

Igor Kagan and Melanie Wilke will investigate the role of intra- and inter-hemispheric interactions in the parietal areas LIP and PRR for decision-making related to eye and arm movements. By performing bi-hemispheric simultaneous recordings from these areas, in combination with unilateral reversible inactivation, this group will investigate how this bilateral neuronal network processes visual information to arrive at decisions related to the planning of saccadic eye and arm reaching movements, and how neuronal perturbations in the lesioned hemisphere affect the activity in the intact hemisphere. Spiking and local field potential (LFP) activity from these experiments will then be compared to concurrent primate fMRI experiments that will employ a similar design. These experiments will shed new light on how specific neuronal substrates from both hemispheres compete and collaborate for arriving at decisions for actions, and how the impaired inter-hemispheric balance causes inactivation-induced deficits.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 1847: The Physiology of Distributed Computing Underlying Higher Brain Functions in Non-Human Primates
• Major Instrumentation: Upgrade data acquisition system
• Instrumentation Group: 3440 Elektrophysiologische Meßsysteme (außer 300-309 und 340-343)
• Participating Person: Professorin Dr. Melanie Wilke