Hand function plays an important role in all primate species, and its loss is associated with severe disability. Grasping movements are complex actions for which the brain needs to integrate sensory and cognitive signals to generate meaningful behavior. To achieve this computation, specialized brain areas in the primate brain are functionally connected, in particular in the parietal (anterior intra parietal area, AIP), premotor (area F5), and primary motor cortex (M1 hand area). This presentation highlights recent experimental results in non-human primates to characterize how these cortical areas interact in order to generate grasping movements on the basis of sensory signals, and how such signals could be used for the decoding of hand actions, e.g., as needed for operating a neural prosthesis.