title: Pre-excitatory pause in frontal eye field responses.
abstract: We report a new characteristic of the presaccadic activity of the neurons in the frontal eye field of macaque monkeys. A fraction of neurons exhibited a significant pause in discharge rate preceding the excitatory visual or movement-related response. This pre-excitatory pause, which has been observed in striate and extrastriate visual areas, may represent a resetting of neural activation for detailed visual processing or saccade preparation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37240, USA.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: J D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Schall
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology; D005625:Frontal Lobe / Q000502:physiology*; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D008255:Macaca radiata; D009433:Neural Inhibition / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D009949:Orientation / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*