Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Princeton Neuroscience Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Princeton NJ 08544, USA.
Neuron. 2011 Oct 20;72(2):330-43. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.07.010.
Anatomical, stimulation, and lesion data have suggested a homology between the rat frontal orienting fields (FOF) (centered at +2 AP, ±1.3 ML mm from Bregma) and primate frontal cortices such as the frontal or supplementary eye fields. We investigated the functional role of the FOF using rats trained to perform a memory-guided orienting task, in which there was a delay period between the end of a sensory stimulus instructing orienting direction and the time of the allowed motor response. Unilateral inactivation of the FOF resulted in impaired contralateral responses. Extracellular recordings of single units revealed that 37% of FOF neurons had delay period firing rates that predicted the direction of the rats' later orienting motion. Our data provide the first electrophysiological and pharmacological evidence supporting the existence in the rat, as in the primate, of a frontal cortical area involved in the preparation and/or planning of orienting responses.
解剖学、刺激和损伤数据表明，大鼠额前定向区（FOF）（位于前囟后 2 毫米，矢状缝旁 1.3 毫米处）与灵长类动物的额皮质（如额前或补充眼区）之间存在同源性。我们使用经过训练执行记忆引导定向任务的大鼠来研究 FOF 的功能作用，在该任务中，在指示定向方向的感觉刺激结束和允许的运动反应时间之间存在延迟期。FOF 的单侧失活导致对侧反应受损。单个单位的细胞外记录显示，37%的 FOF 神经元具有延迟期放电率，可预测大鼠随后的定向运动方向。我们的数据提供了第一个电生理学和药理学证据，支持在大鼠中存在与灵长类动物一样的参与准备和/或规划定向反应的额皮质区域。
