Recent work on the organization of inferior parietal cortex (IPC) showed that most neurons discharge in relation to goal-related motor acts and are involved in processes of sensorimotor integration. Based on these properties, a series of studies investigated the role of IPC in intentional actions, using as paradigm two types of actions, grasping-to-eat and grasping-to-place, and compared the discharge of its neurons with that of grasping neurons of ventral premotor cortex (VPMC).

Grasping neurons of both regions showed a differential activation according to the final goal of the action (eating or placing) in which grasping act is embedded, likely reflecting agent's motor intention. In addition, when tested with different grips in the two actions, many neurons resulted to integrate grip and action goal coding. By using a more complex version of the same paradigm it has been shown that neural coding of motor intention does not end with movement onset, but is kept in mind during actual movement, to guide and shape action unfolding until its completion. One of the most interesting finding of these studies is that both parietal and premotor mirror neurons show a differential activation depending on the action goal, not only during the execution but also during the observation of others' intentional actions. This indicates that the parieto-premotor circuit underlying the organization of intentional actions also allow individuals to decode the motor intentions of others.