[The brain, movement and space].

Abstract

The combination, in humans, of methods of experimental Psychology, of brain imagery by position tomography, and functional MRI, and in animals of fine methods of neuronal recordings, has allowed us to reveal the neural mechanisms of the control of gaze. Thus is now available as important knowledge which can be used in Neuro-Ophthalmology for the understanding of the deficits of gaze control and in Neuro-Otology for the understanding of the vestibular disorders. We have also explored the neural basis of spatial memory and spatial disorientation such as observed in psychiatric symptoms as agoraphobia. Here again through a combination of neuronal recordings in the rat, brain imagery in normal human and studies with neurological patients, we have discovered some of the mechanisms which are involved in the memory of space during navigation tasks. In particular we have shown the role of the limbic system and of parieto-frontal systems in this processes. These results open new avenues in Neurology for the understanding of symptoms such as spatial neglect or topographic memory or perturbation in the control of posture and locomotion.