Effects of ventrolateral premotor lesions on a sequence manipulation task

Abstract

Research in monkeys and humans indicates that the premotor cortex is involved in sequence processing. This does not only apply at the motor level, but holds also true for purely attentional tasks. On the other hand, the lateral premotor cortex appears to be primarily involved in externally (stimulus-based) as opposed to internally (memory-based) actions, whereas the opposite seems to be true for the medial premotor area (SMA). The present study aimed to investigate whether lesions of the ventrolateral premotor cortex cause deficits in memory-based as well as in stimulus-based sequencing in an attentional (non-motor) paradigm.