The impact of learning on goal encoding in premotor cortex

The dorsal aspect of the premotor cortex (PMd) is a key node in the cortical pathway for visually-guided reaching. As such, one of the functions it may contribute to is the conversion from visual (input) to muscle (output) coordinates. My central question is whether or not the task that the animal is trained to perform may affect the tuning properties of PMd neurons. To address this, we recorded from PMd of two Rhesus monkeys while they performed a delayed reaching task. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.).