Integration of multisensory information for skilled grasp

整合多感官信息以实现熟练掌握

• 批准号: BB/J014184/1
• 负责人: Marco Davare
• 金额: $ 95.62万
• 依托单位: University College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FJ014184%2F1
• 关键词: Integration; multisensory; information; skilled; grasp

I have always been fascinated by the human hand, the principal organ through which we interact with our environment. If we lose the ability to use our hands due to illness or trauma, our physical interactions with the environment are critically jeopardised. In our daily life, we use our hands to grasp and manipulate hundreds of objects and tools with an apparently effortless grace. For example, if I see a pen on my desk I can reach out, grasp it and use it. The sight of the pen tells me not only how far to reach but it also evokes memories of how heavy the object is likely to be and where its mass is distributed. This means that by the time my hand has reached the pen, it is in the correct orientation and position to pick it up and prepare to write. As soon as I touch the pen, sensations from the hand tell me whether my estimates of its heaviness or size were correct, and if not, I use the newly acquired information to update my movement. Vision provides accurate information about size and orientation; in contrast, the hand can effectively 'see' around corners and can feel textures so that we know how slippery the surface is. Therefore to permit skilled grasp, the brain needs to extract information from multiple sensory sources, and principally, vision and touch.Previously, I studied how the brain transfers visual information about an object to the motor system. However, this is only half of the picture and I believe it is now crucial to understand how the brain integrates other sensory modalities in planning our interaction with the environment. Information from touch only becomes available once we contact an object. Therefore, to plan a grasping action, the brain needs to use stored memories of an object's tactile properties. After contact with the object is made, the brain can use fresh tactile cues to consolidate this memory and update the grasp, if required. This raises the possibility that there might be two different mechanisms by which relevant visual and tactile information are processed. Visual information would first be integrated with tactile memory. Then, after object contact, vision would be processed together with current tactile cues. This project is about how and where in the brain vision and touch are combined to control grasp. How does the brain switch from dominant visual control during reach to combined vision/touch control as soon as we contact the object? These questions are important for a number of reasons. Improving tactile feedback from instruments and tools can improve dexterity; this can be important for professionals such as surgeons and technicians. A better knowledge of how vision and touch are integrated will also allow us to develop machines that can replicate human grasp and directly benefit paralysed patients. Finally, some neurological diseases (such as stroke and peripheral neuropathies) affect the hand sensorimotor control, impairing the ability to use sensory inputs to control grasp: understanding how such control integrates these inputs may help us to devise better strategies to improve their quality of life.I plan to study grasping movements in a virtual reality environment in which I can control vision of an object separately from touch. I will test how each factor influences the other during different phases of a grasping action. These experiments will reveal how changing the balance between vision and touch affects grasping behaviour. To understand how this is reflected in the brain, I will use transcranial magnetic stimulation, a method of painlessly stimulating the brain directly through the intact scalp in conjunction with brain scanning methods that reveal patterns of activity in the brain. This will allow investigating how areas of the cerebral cortex involved in processing vision and touch interact and transfer information to the motor cortex. These approaches should illuminate in detail the brain mechanisms involved in the sensorimotor integration of vision and touch.

我一直对人类的手着迷，这是我们与环境互动的主要器官。如果我们因为疾病或创伤而失去了使用双手的能力，我们与环境的身体互动就会受到严重威胁。在我们的日常生活中，我们用手抓住和操纵数以百计的物体和工具，显然是毫不费力的优雅。例如，如果我看到桌子上有一支笔，我就可以伸手抓住它并使用它。看到这支笔，我不仅知道它能伸多远，还能唤起我对物体可能有多重以及质量分布在哪里的记忆。这意味着当我的手到达笔的时候，它已经处于正确的方向和位置，可以拿起它准备写作。我一触摸笔，手的感觉就会告诉我，我对笔的重量或大小的估计是否正确，如果不正确，我就使用新获得的信息来更新我的动作。视觉提供了关于尺寸和方向的准确信息；相比之下，手可以有效地“看到”角落，并能感觉到纹理，这样我们就知道表面有多滑。因此，为了能够熟练地掌握，大脑需要从多个感官来源提取信息，主要是视觉和触觉。在此之前，我研究了大脑如何将关于物体的视觉信息传输到运动系统。然而，这只是画面的一半，我认为现在至关重要的是了解大脑如何在规划我们与环境的互动时整合其他感官模式。只有当我们接触到一个物体时，才能从触摸中获得信息。因此，为了计划抓取动作，大脑需要使用物体触觉属性的存储记忆。在与物体接触后，大脑可以使用新鲜的触觉线索来巩固这一记忆，并在需要时更新抓取。这提出了可能存在两种不同的机制来处理相关的视觉和触觉信息。视觉信息将首先与触觉记忆相结合。然后，在物体接触后，视觉将与当前的触觉线索一起进行处理。这个项目是关于大脑如何以及在哪里结合视觉和触觉来控制抓取。当我们接触物体时，大脑如何从伸展时的主导视觉控制切换到视觉/触觉联合控制？这些问题之所以重要，原因有很多。改进仪器和工具的触觉反馈可以提高灵活性；这对外科医生和技术人员等专业人员来说很重要。更好地了解视觉和触觉是如何结合在一起的，也将使我们能够开发出能够复制人类抓取并直接造福瘫痪患者的机器。最后，一些神经系统疾病(如中风和周围神经病)会影响手的感觉运动控制，削弱使用感觉输入来控制抓取的能力：了解这种控制如何整合这些输入可能有助于我们设计出更好的策略来提高他们的生活质量。我计划学习在虚拟现实环境中的抓取运动，在这种环境中，我可以控制物体的视觉而不是触摸。我将测试在抓握动作的不同阶段，每个因素是如何影响其他因素的。这些实验将揭示改变视觉和触觉之间的平衡是如何影响抓取行为的。为了了解这一点是如何反映在大脑中的，我将使用经颅磁刺激，这是一种通过完整的头皮直接无痛刺激大脑的方法，与揭示大脑活动模式的脑扫描方法相结合。这将允许研究大脑皮层参与处理视觉和触觉的区域如何相互作用，并将信息传输到运动皮质。这些方法应该详细地阐明视觉和触觉的感觉运动整合所涉及的大脑机制。

项目成果

A Causal Role for Primary Motor Cortex in Perception of Observed Actions.

• DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_01015
• 发表时间: 2016-12
• 期刊: Journal of cognitive neuroscience
• 影响因子: 3.2
• 作者: Palmer CE;Bunday KL;Davare M;Kilner JM
• 通讯作者: Kilner JM

Dissociable contribution of the parietal and frontal cortex to coding movement direction and amplitude.

• DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00241
• 发表时间: 2015
• 期刊: Frontiers in human neuroscience
• 影响因子: 2.9
• 作者: Davare M;Zénon A;Desmurget M;Olivier E
• 通讯作者: Olivier E

Cortical Connectivity

皮质连接

• DOI: 10.1007/978-3-662-45797-9_6
• 发表时间: 2012
• 作者: Davare M