Electrophysiological dataset from macaque visual cortical area MST in response to a novel motion stimulus

Abstract

Establishing the cortical neural representation of visual stimuli is a central challenge of systems neuroscience. Publicly available data would allow a broad range of scientific analyses and hypothesis testing, but are rare and largely focused on the early visual system. To address the shortage of open data from higher visual areas, we provide a comprehensive dataset from a neurophysiology study in macaque monkey visual cortex that includes a complete record of extracellular action potential recordings from the extrastriate medial superior temporal (MST) area, behavioral data, and detailed stimulus records. It includes spiking activity of 172 single neurons recorded in 139 sessions from 4 hemispheres of 3 rhesus macaque monkeys. The data was collected across 3 experiments, designed to characterize the response properties of MST neurons to complex motion stimuli. This data can be used to elucidate visual information processing at the level of single neurons in a high-level area of primate visual cortex. Providing open access to this dataset also promotes the 3R-principle of responsible animal research.