title: Neuronal activity in visual, auditory and polysensory areas in the monkey temporal cortex during visual fixation task.
abstract: The activity of 252 neurons in the inferotemporal visual area TEO, the superior temporal auditory area (AA), and the superior temporal polysensory area (STP) during the performance of a visual spot-fixation task and two variations, blink and tone tests, was examined in two behaving monkeys. A considerable number of not only TEO cells (45%) but also AA (29%) and STP (34%) cells were activated during the spot-fixation task, but unresponsive to the blanking of the spot during the fixation stage in the blink test. In addition, it was found that the activity of a third of the TEO, AA and STP cells which fired during the task-start stage in the spot-fixation task was modulated by cross-interaction between spot and tone simultaneously presented in the tone test: among these, the spot-induced activity of all TEO cells was enhanced by the tone, whereas the spot-induced activity of all AA and STP cells was suppressed by the tone. These findings are discussed in relation to the process of attending selectively to a fixation-spot.
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioral Physiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Neurosciences, Japan.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Watanabe
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Iwai
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation; D000818:Animals; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001767:Blinking; D004585:Electrooculography; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception