Motor Cortical Encoding of Serial Order in a Context-Recall Task
- 12 March 1999
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 283 (5408), 1752-1757
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.283.5408.1752
Abstract
The neural encoding of serial order was studied in the motor cortex of monkeys performing a context-recall memory scanning task. Up to five visual stimuli were presented successively on a circle (list presentation phase), and then one of them (test stimulus) changed color; the monkeys had to make a single motor response toward the stimulus that immediately followed the test stimulus in the list. Correct performance in this task depends on memorization of the serial order of the stimuli during their presentation. It was found that changes in neural activity during the list presentation phase reflected the serial order of the stimuli; the effect on cell activity of the serial order of stimuli during their presentation was at least as strong as the effect of motor direction on cell activity during the execution of the motor response. This establishes the serial order of stimuli in a motor task as an important determinant of motor cortical activity during stimulus presentation and in the absence of changes in peripheral motor events, in contrast to the commonly held view of the motor cortex as just an “upper motor neuron.”Keywords
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- On the relations between single cell activity in the motor cortex and the direction and magnitude of three-dimensional static isometric forceExperimental Brain Research, 1996
- Motor Cortical Activity in a Context-Recall TaskScience, 1995
- Feature Article: Distributed Modular Architectures Linking Basal Ganglia, Cerebellum, and Cerebral Cortex: Their Role in Planning and Controlling ActionCerebral Cortex, 1995
- Delay-related activity in the primate prefrontal cortex during sequential reaching tasks with delayNeuroscience Research, 1993
- Cognitive Neurophysiology of the Motor CortexScience, 1993
- The prefrontal cortex and internally generated motor actsCurrent Opinion in Neurobiology, 1992
- Functional specialization within the dorsolateral frontal cortex for serial order memoryProceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 1991
- Adaptation of the Reitboeck method of multiple microelectrode recording to the neocortex of the waking monkeyJournal of Neuroscience Methods, 1991
- Prefrontal cortex and spatial sequencing in macaque monkeyExperimental Brain Research, 1989
- Implantation of magnetic search coils for measurement of eye position: An improved methodVision Research, 1980