ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the neural mechanisms underpinning visual-to-motor transformations for grasp control, for which brain areas in the dorsal visual pathway are known to play an essential role. L. G. Ungerleider and M. Mishkin suggest that the primate cortical visual system is functionally divided: A pathway from occipital to inferotemporal cortex mediates 'object vision', while a separate pathway from occipital to posterior parietal cortex (PPC) mediates 'spatial vision'. Monkeys are trained to grasp a target object with either a precision or whole-hand grasp depending on a learned fixation cue, cells in anterior intraparietal area (AIP) or ventral premotor cortex (F5) show visual-object coding during the premovement phase of a delayed grasping task, but only after the task cue are presented. AIP and F5 are part of a dorsolateral pathway and parieto-occipital cortex and dorsal premotor cortex are part of a dorsomedial pathway. Areas AIP and F5 constitute the dorsolateral pathway for grasp control in the macaque monkey.
