Early coding of reaching: frontal and parietal association connections of parieto-occipital cortex

The ipsilateral association connections of the cortex of the dorsal part of the rostral bank of the parieto‐occipital sulcus and of the adjoining posterior part of the superior parietal lobule were studied by using different retrograde flourescent tracers. Fluoro‐Ruby, Fast blue and Diamidino yellow were injected into visual area V6A, and dorso‐caudal (PMdc, F2) and dorso‐rostral (PMdr, F7) premotor cortex, respectively. The parietal area of injection had been previously characterized physiologically in behaving monkeys, through a variety of oculomotor and visuomanual tasks. Area V6A is mainly linked by reciprocal projections to parietal areas 7m, MIP (medial intraparietal) and PEa, and, to a lesser extent, to frontal areas PMdr (rostral dorsal premotor cortex, F7) and PMdc (F2). All these areas project to that part of the dorsocaudal premotor cortex that has a direct access to primary motor cortex. V6A is also connected to area F5 and, to a lesser extent, to 7a, ventral (VIP) and lateral (LIP) intraparietal areas. This pattern of association connections may explain the presence of visually‐related and eye‐position signals in premotor cortex, as well as the influence of information concerning arm position and movement direction on V6A neural activity. Area V6A emerges as a potential ‘early’ node of the distributed network underlying visually‐guided reaching. In this network, reciprocal association connections probably impose, through re‐entrant signalling, a recursive property to the operations leading to the composition of eye and hand motor commands.