Effects of putamen cooling on the latency, speed and accuracy of a pointing movement in the baboon.
The functional role of the putamen, in both initiation and execution of a motor act, was investigated in 3 baboons performing a visuomotor pointing task. Reversible blockade of the putamen differentially affected the spatiotemporal components of the response. The results stress the importance of the putamen in the triggering of a goal-directed movement, but show that this structure does not seem critically involved in the control of the speed and accuracy of the movement.
D000818:Animals; D003080:Cold Temperature; D000882:Haplorhini; D009044:Motor Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology*; D010215:Papio; D011699:Putamen / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology