Impairments and recovery of the spatial and temporal components of a visuomotor pointing movement after unilateral destruction of the dentate nucleus in the baboon.

In baboons trained to perform visuomotor pointing movements, unilateral electrolytic lesions are performed in the dentate nucleus. The consequences of these lesions on the following movement parameters are then studied:--temporal parameters: reaction time and movement time;--spatial parameters: pointing area and directional errors. From the observations taken 3 months after the dentate nucleus exclusion, a distinction can be made between parameters showing recovery phenomena (reaction time and pointing area) and components definitively affected (movement time and directional error).