Processing of visual signals for direct specification of motor targets and for conceptual representation of action targets in the dorsal and ventral premotor cortex.

Previous reports have indicated that the premotor cortex (PM) uses visual information for either direct guidance of limb movements or indirect specification of action targets at a conceptual level. We explored how visual inputs signaling these two different categories of information are processed by PM neurons. Monkeys performed a delayed reaching task after receiving two different sets of visual instructions, one directly specifying the spatial location of a motor target (a direct spatial-target cue) and the other providing abstract information about the spatial location of a motor target by indicating whether to select the right or left target at a conceptual level (a symbolic action-selection cue). By comparing visual responses of PM neurons to the two sets of visual cues, we found that the conceptual action plan indicated by the symbolic action-selection cue was represented predominantly in dorsal PM (PMd) neurons with a longer latency (150 ms), whereas both PMd and ventral PM (PMv) neurons responded with a shorter latency (90 ms) when the motor target was directly specified with the direct spatial-target cue. We also found that excited, but not inhibited, responses of PM neurons to the direct spatial-target cue were biased toward contralateral preference. In contrast, responses to the symbolic action-selection cue were either excited or inhibited without laterality preference. Taken together, these results suggest that the PM constitutes a pair of distinct circuits for visually guided motor act; one circuit, linked more strongly with PMd, carries information for retrieving action instruction associated with a symbolic cue, and the other circuit, linked with PMd and PMv, carries information for directly specifying a visuospatial position of a reach target.