The Role of the Posterior Parietal Cortex in Stereopsis and Hand-eye Co-ordination during Motor Task Behaviours

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. 14 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 (SPL) was observed during both depth perception and hand-eye co ordination tasks. This occurred contrary to our hypothesis, regardless of the mode of visual feedback. Operator technical performance was significantly different in 2 and 3-dimensional visual displays. These differences in technical performance do not appear to be explained by significant differences in parietal lobe processing.