Neuronal activity in visual, auditory and polysensory areas in the monkey temporal cortex during visual fixation task

Abstract The activity of 252 neurons in the inferotemporal visual area TEO, the superior temporal auditory area (AA), and the superior temporal polysensory area (STP) during the performance of a visual spot-fixation task and two variations, blink and tone tests, was examined in two behaving monkeys. A considerable number of not only TEO cells (45%) but also AA (29%) and STP (34%) cells were activated during the spot-fixation task, but unresponsive to the blanking of the spot during the fixation stage in the blink test. In addition, it was found that the activity of a third of the TEO, AA and STP cells which fired during the task-start stage in the spot-fixation task was modulated by cross-interaction between spot and tone simultaneously presented in the tone test: among these, the spot-induced activity of all TEO cells was enhanced by the tone, whereas the spot-induced activity of all AA and STP cells was suppressed by the tone. These findings are discussed in relation to the process of attending selectively to a fixation-spot.