KU Leuven discovers brain process responsible for gripping

During everyday activities like grasping a glass or taking a pen between the fingers, the brain is stimulated in various way. For example, we automatically look at the object, analyse its 3D form, reaching out a hand towards it and then actually gripping it.

Scientists knew that activity in the parietal cortex in the brain was responsible for seeing and grasping of objects, but they did not know with which other brain areas the cells in the parietal cortex communicated. The team at KU Leuven, led by professor Peter Janssen, have now found that information first passes from the back to the front subsector of the partial cortex and then stimulates the brain areas that start off the movement of the arm.

The research results, published in PLOS Biology, provide an important insight in the working of the brain as it’s just the communication between its cells that make the brain such a complex organ.

“These new findings can be used in a lot of applications,” professor Janssen told De Morgen. “For instance, they can help make robots more flexible so they can grasp objects in a more refined way, enabling paralysed patients to control a robot arm via electrodes in the brain.”

For the study, researchers carried out experiments on rhesus macaque monkeys. Because of innovative research methods, the test animals didn’t have to euthanised afterwards, unlike in the past with similar studies that examine brain processes in primates.