ACTIVITY IN THE PARIETAL AREA DURING VISUOMOTOR LEARNING WITH OPTICAL-ROTATION

REGIONAL cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured in six subjects to st udy changes of activity in the parietal cortex during learning of a vi sually guided pointing task with a discrepancy of visuomotor coordinat ion and to determine whether reorganization affects the parietal activ ity after learning, the right posterior parietal cortex showed a signi ficant increase in rCBF. During the late stage, on the other hand, sig nificant activation was noted in the postcentral gyrus of the right he misphere. These results support a role for the posterior parietal cort ex in remapping visuomotor coordinates and suggest the involvement of the human postcentral gyrus in retaining sensorimotor coordinates, con sidered to relate to the self image of the hand.