Human Cortical Control of Hand Movements: Parietofrontal Networks for Reaching, Grasping, and Pointing

In primates, control of the limb depends on many cortical areas. Whereas specialized parietofrontal circuits have been proposed for different movements in macaques, functional neuroimaging in humans has revealed widespread, overlapping activations for hand and eye movements and for movements such as reaching and grasping. This review examines the involvement of frontal and parietal areas in hand and arm movements in humans as revealed with functional neuroimaging. The degree of functional specialization, possible homologies with macaque cortical regions, and differences between frontal and posterior parietal areas are discussed, as well as a possible organization of hand movements with respect to different spatial reference frames. The available evidence supports a cortical organization along gradients of sensory (visual to somatosensory) and effector (eye to hand) preferences.