MENTAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE MOTOR CORTEX

The behavioral and neural correlates of processing of motor directiona l information are described for two visuomotor tasks: mental rotation and context-recall. Psychological studies with human subjects suggeste d that these two tasks involve different time-consuming processes of d irectional information. Analyses of the activity of single cells and n euronal populations in the motor cortex of behaving monkeys performing in the same tasks provided direct insight into the neural mechanisms involved and confirmed their different nature. in the mental rotation task the patterns of neuronal activity revealed a rotation of the inte nded direction of movement. In contrast, in the context-recall task th e patterns of neural activity identified a switching process of the in tended direction of movement.