Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
407977 Neural Networks 2006 20 Pages PDF
Abstract

To examine how the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) contributes to the decision process of the saccade direction, we recorded single-neuron activity while two monkeys performed two oculomotor delayed-response (ODR) tasks. In an ordinary ODR task, monkeys were required to make a memory-guided saccade to the cue location after a 3-s delay. In a self-selection version of the ODR task (S-ODR), four identical visual cues were presented simultaneously at the cue period, and monkeys were required to make a saccade toward any one of four directions after a 3-s delay. By comparing the same neuron’s activity between two tasks, we found (1) neurons having directional cue-period activity in the ODR task did not show directionally selective activity in the S-ODR task, (2) neurons having directional pre-saccadic activity showed highly similar directional preferences in two tasks and exhibited temporal coupling between the onset of pre-saccadic activity and the initiation of saccadic eye movements, (3) neurons with directional delay-period activity in the ODR task exhibited similar directional preferences and showed gradual increase in the strength of the directional selectivity toward the end of the delay period in the S-ODR task. These results suggest that directional delay-period activity contributes to the decision process of the saccade direction in the S-ODR task, while directional cue-period and pre-saccadic activities do not. The gradual increase of the directional selectivity in delay-period activity might correspond to neural correlates of the decision process of the saccade direction in the S-ODR task.

Related Topics
Physical Sciences and Engineering Computer Science Artificial Intelligence
Authors
, , ,