ROLE OF THE PRIMATE STRIATUM IN ATTENTION AND SENSORIMOTOR PROCESSES - COMPARISON WITH PREMOTOR CORTEX

THE present study was aimed at distinguishing neuronal activity associ ated with shifts of attention from that reflecting motor set. Our beha vioural paradigm allowed a given visual stimulus to serve as a cue for the reorientation of spatial attention or as a cue for establishing a motor set, depending on when it occurred during a trial. Other aspect s of the paradigm were designed to identify neurones whose activity di ffered when various stimulus configurations instructed the same action , as well as neurones whose activity differed when two different limb movements were instructed by the same stimulus. We found that many str iatal cells discharge preferentially in relation to cues which reorien t spatial attention, although they may also discharge after cues which instruct a motor act. In contrast to the dorsal premotor area (PMd, d orsolateral area 6), in both the caudate nucleus and putamen a larger proportion of the neuronal sample reflected both movement direction an d stimulus attributes. These results support a role for striatal neuro nes in both attentional set shifting and the preparation for context-s pecific actions.