Spatial selectivity of go/no-go neurons in monkey prefrontal cortex.
We examined single-unit activity in the inferior prefrontal cortex during a visual go/no-go discrimination task under maintained visual fixation. The monkeys had to base their response on either the color, shape, or position of a discriminative cue, and the relevant task condition was indicated by the color of the fixation spot. We analyzed the spatial selectivity of 128 go/no-go neurons showing a marked differential cue-period activity that depended on whether the stimulus signaled a go or no-go response. Most of these neurons (n = 106, 83%) showed asymmetry between their responses to stimuli in the contralateral and ipsilateral visual fields. Seventy-seven of these neurons had a contralateral preferential field, and 29 had an ipsilateral preferential field. These results show that in many inferior prefrontal neurons a degree of differentiation in their responses to go and no-go stimuli depends on the cue positions, and that the coding of behavioral meaning is carried out mainly in the contralateral hemisphere.
Sakagami
M
M
Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo, Japan.
Niki
H
H
D000818:Animals; D003118:Color Perception / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D005556:Form Perception / Q000502:physiology; D008251:Macaca; D008297:Male; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*