Summary
Two monkeys were trained on both visual and auditory association tasks. Single unit activity of the frontal (prefrontal and post-arcuate premotor) cortex was recorded in these monkeys to investigate the convergence of visual and auditory inputs and to examine whether the frontal units are involved in coding the meaning (associative significance) of the stimulus, independent of its modality. A total of 289 units showed changes in firing rate after the cue presentation on the visual and/or auditory tasks and were examined on both modalities of tasks, 175 of them showing differential activity in relation to either the associative significance and/or physical properties of the visual and/or auditory cues. Of the 289 units, 136 (47.0%) were responsive only to the visual cue (76 of them showing cue-related differential activity), 13 units (4.5%) only to the auditory cue (6 of them showing cue-related differential activity) and the remaining 140 units (48.5%) to both modalities of cues (18 of them showing visual, 7 of them showing auditory and 68 showing both modalities of cue-related differential activity). Fifty of the 68 bimodal differential units showed changes in firing in relation to the associative significance of both modalities of cues independent of the cue's physical properties, and are considered to be involved in the crossmodal coding of the associative significance of the stimulus. The proportion of bimodal differential units was higher in the pre- and post-arcuate areas than in the principalis and inferior convexity areas of the frontal cortex. The results indicate that some frontal units participate in the crossmodal coding of the associative significance of the stimulus independent of its physical properties, and most frontal units play different roles depending on the modality of the stimulus.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Amaral DG, Price JL (1984) Amygdalo-cortical projections in the monkey (Macaca fascicularis). J Comp Neurol 230: 465–496
Azuma M, Suzuki H (1984) Properties and distribution of auditory neurons in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of the alert monkey. Brain Res 298: 343–346
Baylis GC, Rolls ET, Leonard CM (1987) Functional subdivisions of the temporal lobe neocortex. J Neurosci 7: 330–342
Benevento LA, Fallon J, Davis BJ, Rezak M (1977) Auditory-visual interaction in single cells in the cortex of the superior temporal sulcus and the orbital frontal cortex of the macaque monkey. Exp Neurol 57: 849–872
Bruce CJ, Desimone R, Gross CG (1981) Visual properties of neurons in a polysensory area in superior temporal sulcus of the macaque. J Neurophysiol 46: 369–384
Bruce CJ, Goldberg ME (1985) Primate frontal eye fields: I. Single neurons discharging before saccades. J Neurophysiol 53: 606–635
Chavis D, Pandya DN (1976) Further observations on corticofrontal connections in the rhesus monkey. Brain Res 117: 369–386
Desimone R, Gross CG (1979) Visual areas in the temporal cortex of the macaque. Brain Res 178: 363–380
Goldman-Rakic PS, Selemon LD, Schwartz ML (1984) Dual pathways connecting the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex with the hippocampal formation and parahippocampal cortex in the rhesus monkey. Neuroscience 12: 719–743
Hikosaka K, Iwai E, Saito H, Tanaka K (1988) Polysensory properties of neurons in the anterior bank of the caudal superior temporal sulcus of the macaque monkey. J Neurophysiol 60: 1615–1637
Ito S (1982) Prefrontal unit activity of macaque monkeys during auditory and visual reaction time tasks. Brain Res 247: 39–47
Jacobson S, Trojanowski JQ (1977) Prefrontal granular cortex of the rhesus monkey. I. Intrahemispheric cortical afferents. Brain Res 132: 209–233
Jones EG, Powell TPS (1970) An anatomical study of converging sensory pathways within the cerebral cortex of the monkey. Brain 93: 793–820
Kawamura K, Naito J (1984) Corticocortical projections to the prefrontal cortex in the rhesus monkey investigated with horseradish peroxidase techniques. Neurosci Res 1: 89–103
Kurata K, Tanji J (1986) Premotor cortex neurons in macaques: activity before distal and proximal forelimb movements. J Neurosci 6: 403–411
Niki H, Sugita S, Watanabe M (1990) Modification of the activity of primate frontal neurons during learning of a Go/No-go discrimination and its reversal — A progress report. In: Iwai E, Mishkin M (eds) Vision, memory and temporal lobe. Elsevier, Amsterdam pp 295–304
Pandya DN, Barnes CL (1987) Architecture and connections of the frontal lobe. In: Perecman E (ed) The frontal lobes revisited. The IRBN Press, New York, pp 41–72
Pandya DM, Kuypers H (1969) Cortico-cortical connections in the rhesus monkey. Brain Res 13: 13–36
Pandya DN, Seltzer B (1982) Association areas of the cerebral cortex. Trends Neurosci 5: 386–390
Rizzolatti G, Scandolara C, Matelli M, Gentilucci M (1981) Afferent properties of periarcuate neurons in macaque monkeys. I. Somato-sensory responses. Behav Brain Res 2: 125–146
Rizzolatti G, Gentilucci M (1988) Motor and visuo-motor functions of the premotor cortex. In: Rakic P, Singer W (eds) Neurobiology of neocortex. Dahlem Konferenzen. Wiley, New York, pp 269–284
Rosenkilde CE, Bauer RH, Fuster JM (1981) Single cell activity in ventral prefrontal cortex of behaving monkeys. Brain Res 209: 375–394
Seltzer B, Pandya DN (1989) Frontal lobe connections of the superior temporal sulcus in the rhesus monkey. J Comp Neurol 281: 97–113
Thorpe SJ, Rolls ET, Maddison S (1983) The orbitofrontal cortex: neuronal activity in the behaving monkey. Exp Brain Res 49: 93–115
Vaadia E, Benson DA, Hienz RD, Goldstein MH Jr (1986) Unit study of monkey frontal cortex: active localization of auditory and of visual stimuli. J Neurophysiol 56: 934–952
Vaadia E, Bergman H, Abeles M (1989) Neuronal activities related to higher brain functions — theoretical and experimental implications. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 36: 25–35
Walker AE (1940) A cytoarchitectural study of the prefrontal area of the macaque monkey. J Comp Neurol 73: 59–86
Watanabe M (1986) Prefrontal unit activity during delayed conditional Go/No-go discrimination in the monkey. I. Relation to the stimulus. Brain Res 382: 1–14
Watanabe M (1989) Prefrontal neurons which code a meaning of a stimulus across modalities. Neurosci Res (Suppl) 9: 79
Watanabe M (1990) Prefrontal unit activity during associative learning in the monkey. Exp Brain Res 80: 296–309
Weinrich M, Wise SP (1982) The premotor cortex of the monkey. J Neurosci 2: 1329–1345
Weinrich M, Wise SP, Mauritz K-H (1984) A neurophysiological study of the premotor cortex in the rhesus monkey. Brain 107: 385–414
Wollberg Z, Sela J (1980) Frontal cortex of the awake squirrel monkey: responses of single cells to visual and auditory stimuli. Brain Res 198: 216–220
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Watanabe, M. Frontal units of the monkey coding the associative significance of visual and auditory stimuli. Exp Brain Res 89, 233–247 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00228241
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00228241