I have initiated a study of the behavioral neurophysiology of the prefrontal cortex. Laboratory set-up, development or purchase of data acquisition software and animal training were completed in the previous year. In this year, recordings of eye movements, single-neuron and behavioral responses were obtained from one animal as part of my effort to evaluate the relation between neuronal activity in the prefrontal cortex and conscious control of visually-triggered delayed response tasks. The analysis of these data have been delayed pending completion of the programming necessary to make our unique analysis programs accept the new data format introduced in the past year. This programming task is scheduled to be completed in June and a beta version is supposed to be available on or about June 14. In addition, substantial improvements in the computer software for data acquisition, display and print out have been made. Two computer science students have been recruited as summer interns to assist with these projects and efforts are continuing to recruit a IRTA postdoctoral fellow to assist with all phases of labwork. Training and surgery for a second monkey has been completed and recordings are scheduled to begin in June. A third monkey is also nearly finished with surgery and will be used in projects to evaluate the role of the pre-striate and parietal areas in control of memory-guided eve movements and for visual-motion-processing tasks. Neuronal recordings from these two monkeys will continue throughout the coming year.
