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The role of the posterior parietal cortex in stereopsis and hand-eye coordination during motor task behaviours

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Abstract

The field of ‘Neuroergonomics’ has the potential to improve safety in high-risk operative environments through a better appreciation of the way in which the brain responds during human–tool interactions. This is especially relevant to minimally invasive surgery (MIS). Amongst the many challenges imposed on the surgeon by traditional MIS (laparoscopy), arguably the greatest is the loss of depth perception. Robotic MIS platforms, on the other hand, provide the surgeon with a magnified three-dimensional view of the environment, and as a result may offload a degree of the cognitive burden. The posterior parietal cortex (PPC) plays an integral role in human depth perception. Therefore, it can be hypothesized that differences in PPC activation between monoscopic and stereoscopic vision may be observed. In order to investigate this hypothesis, the current study explores disparities in PPC responses between monoscopic and stereoscopic visual perception to better de-couple the burden imposed by laparoscopy and robotic surgery on the operator’s brain. Fourteen participants conducted tasks of depth perception and hand-eye coordination under both monoscopic and stereoscopic visual feedback. Cortical haemodynamic responses were monitored throughout using optical functional neuroimaging. Overall, recruitment of the bilateral superior parietal lobule was observed during both depth perception and hand-eye coordination tasks. This occurred contrary to our hypothesis, regardless of the mode of visual feedback. Operator technical performance was significantly different in two- and three-dimensional visual displays. These differences in technical performance do not appear to be explained by significant differences in parietal lobe processing.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded in part by the Academy of Medical Sciences and Cancer Research (UK), which was not involved in the in study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data.

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None to declare.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Verona, Strada le Grazie 15, 37134, Verona, Italy

    Giulia Paggetti & Gloria Menegaz

  2. Hamlyn Centre for Robotic Surgery, Imperial College London, Exhibition Road, London, SW7 2AZ, UK

    Daniel Richard Leff, Felipe Orihuela-Espina, George Mylonas, Ara Darzi & Guang-Zhong Yang

  3. National Institute for Astrophysics, Optics and Electronics (INAOE), Sta. Maria Tonantzintla, 72840, Puebla, Mexico

    Felipe Orihuela-Espina

Authors
  1. Giulia Paggetti
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  2. Daniel Richard Leff
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  3. Felipe Orihuela-Espina
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  4. George Mylonas
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  5. Ara Darzi
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  6. Guang-Zhong Yang
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  7. Gloria Menegaz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Giulia Paggetti.

Appendix

Appendix

See Tables 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Table 5 ΔHbO2 (average task HbO2—average rest HbO2) for each channel and for each experiment and visual condition
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Table 6 ΔHHb (average task HHb—average rest HHb) for each channel and for each experiment and visual condition
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Paggetti, G., Leff, D.R., Orihuela-Espina, F. et al. The role of the posterior parietal cortex in stereopsis and hand-eye coordination during motor task behaviours. Cogn Process 16, 177–190 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-014-0641-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-014-0641-1

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