Σεμινάριο Αποφοίτων Επιστημών Εγκεφάλου και Νου: Parieto-frontal networks during action in real world and in virtual reality
Parieto-frontal networks during action in real world and in virtual reality.
Konstantinos Chatzidimitrakis, MSc, PhD
Associate Professor,
Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, University of Bologna, ITALY
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Wednesday, March 18, 2026 |
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14:00-15:00 |
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Alumni of the BRAIN and MIND Sciences Seminar Series ZOOM LINK Meeting ID: 898 1282 5746 Passcode: 703942 |
Info: Vassilis Raos, 4512, raos@uoc.gr
The speaker:
Konstantinos Chatzidimitrakis
BSc in Biology, University of Patras, 1995; MSc in Brain and Mind Sciences, 1999; PhD, University of Crete, 2007; Thesis: “Neural control of gaze shifts: neuroanatomical and neurophysiological approaches”;
Research Fellow/Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Oxford, 2006-2008; University of Bologna, 2009-2012, 2019-2021; Monash University, 2013-2018; Assistant Professor, University of Bologna, 2021-2024;
My research interests are centred on the functional interactions between parietal and frontal cortex areas during naturalistic behaviors, with special focus on the perception and action in 3D space. Current work employs combinations of multielectrode array recordings in awake behaving animals, lesions, computational methods and behavioural testing to investigate sensorimotor processing in non-human primates in physical environment and in virtual reality.
Summary of the presentation:
The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) of humans and non-human primates plays a key role in the sensory and motor transformations required to guide motor actions to objects of interest in the environment and sends spatial information and motor signals to frontal cortex regions for movement planning and execution. Experimental evidence from single neuron recording studies in non-human primates has demonstrated a rich mixing of signals processed by parietal neurons, but how these mixed spatial and motor representations evolve across subregions of the PPC and between parietal and frontal areas remains largely unresolved. I will present studies of arm reaching movements in real, 3D space that compared the coding of direction and distance information across three distinct PPC areas. A variety of methods revealed a stronger influence of direction information during early movement preparation, whereas depth effects prevailed during movement execution. These findings suggest a serial direction and depth processing that supports behavioral evidence and hint at a gradient of joint versus independent control of these features in PPC that supports its role in sensorimotor transformations. In addition, I will present work that compared the coding of 3D reaches between two strongly interconnected parietal and frontal subregions (area V6A in PPC and area F2 in dorsal premotor cortex) and found sharper spatial tuning in PPC compared to frontal cortex, with a particularly robust representation of target depth. Finally, I will show some preliminary work that addresses the contribution of parieto-frontal populations in navigation movements in virtual reality.
