Visual responses in the dorsal premotor area F2 of the macaque monkey

This study aimed to determine the presence of neurons responding to visual stimuli in area F2 of the dorsal premotor cortex of the macaque monkey. In order to delimit the sector in which visually responsive neurons are locate d, the somatotopic organization of area F2 was studied with intracortical m icrostimulation and single neuron recording. The results showed that: (1) i n area F2 there is a significant percentage of visually responsive neurons (15.9% of all recorded neurons): (2) area F2 is excitable with a low-thresh old current (average 28.1 mu A) and has a somatotopic representation of the whole body, except the face; and (3) most visually driven neurons (n=130 o ut of 169) are concentrated within the rostrolateral sector of the forelimb representation of area F2, thus providing for the first time functional su pport for the neuroanatomical evidence that the visual input to area F2 is mostly restricted to this sector.