Cortical circuitry of goal -oriented movements

The study of anatomical connections between cortical areas reveals the organization of pathways for visual information to motor cortex. Separate circuits seem to operate for visual control for each aspect of object oriented movements, such as for reaching and grasping. The fronto-striatal system comes into play when action implies arbitrary rules associating a movement with a given stimulus. Premotor areas are thus at the crossroad of several types of informations. Informations derived from parietal areas are used for visual guidance of movements ; informations derived from basal ganglia encode learned actions. Anatomy contributes to understanding how premotor cortex selects the relevant information and allows for learning new associations.