Within grasp but out of reach: evidence for a double dissociation between imagined hand and arm movements in the left cerebral hemisphere

What roles are played by the cerebral hemispheres in planning object-oriented reaching and grasping movements? In an attempt to address this question, we compared the abilities of the left and right hemispheres of commissurotomy patient J.W. to imagine hand manipulation (i.e., grasp) or arm transportation (i.e., reach) movements. A graphically rendered manipulandum (dowel) was briefly presented to the left (LVF) or right (RVF) visual fields in a variety of different orientations. In the grasp selection task (experiment 1), J.W. was required to determine which side of a dowel his thumb would be on if he were to engage the stimulus in a power grip using either his dominant (right) or non-dominant hand. In the reach selection task (experiment 3), J.W. judged which end his elbow would be on if he treated the dowel as an armrest for his dominant or non-dominant forearm. No actual movements were allowed in either task. Movements selected in the imagery tasks were compared with those chosen during actual motor control under comparable circumstances. These comparisons revealed a left hemisphere advantage for representing grasping movements involving the right hand, and reaching movements involving the left arm. The right hemisphere, by contrast, displayed moderate accuracy when representing grasping movements with the left hand, but appeared incapable of imagining reaching movements with either arm. The double dissociation between imagery for hand and arm movements in the left cerebral hemispere is consistent with the hypothesis that grasping and reaching components of prehension involve dissociable planning mechanisms.