Brain Mechanisms of Praxis
permalinkThe Cognitive Neurosciences - 2004-10-01Georgopoulos AP
The chapter deals with the neural mechanisms of praxis, that is, purposeful motor actions. Three typical praxis tasks were used: copy geometrical figures, find exit routes in mazes, and construct objects from component parts. These tasks are commonly used in clinical neurology to determine the presence, and evaluate the severity, of constructional apraxia. Brain mechanisms were investigated using various methods and in different species, including experimental psychology (in human subjects and monkeys), Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
(in human subjects), and single cell recordings from multiple sites (in monkeys). The results obtained provided new insights into how the brain deals with dynamic visuomotor processes and carries out purposeful eupractic motor actions.