Event Abstract Back to Event FEF neural responses during uninstructed, optimal eye movements in a free-viewing scan task The majority of primate electrophysiological experiments begin gathering neural data only after the animal is well trained. In this experiment we recorded from the frontal eye fields (FEF), prefrontal cortex (PFC), and caudate nucleus (CN) of two monkeys throughout the acquisition of a novel free-viewing scan task. In this task monkeys were required to maintain their eye position in the space occupied by a 4- or 9-target (depending on the stage of training) grid of dots until, by freely making saccades in that space, they fixated on or passed through the target randomly chosen to be rewarded. We previously reported that monkeys form habitual patterns of eye movements without explicit shaping or instruction of any kind (Feledy, et al. Cosyne 2007). Furthermore, we found that these patterns of eye movements, or scan paths, gradually evolve to be more optimal through training where optimality was defined as the shortest distance and time to cover all the grid targets in a loop. Here we focus on recording results from a single cortical area, FEF, obtained at the end of training. Because of the free-viewing nature of this task, we first categorized FEF units according to those properties found in the FEF of over-trained monkeys performing single saccade tasks. We found similar kinds of general responses, as defined by modulation of mean firing rate, e.g. direction selectivity and visual selectivity. In addition, we found units that had more complex firing properties that may be novel and could indicate as yet undocumented properties of FEF units that emerge with uninstructed learning of a naturalistic task. This work is supported by: NEI EY12848, Friends of the McGovern Institute Graduate Fellowship, NDSEG Fellowship Conference: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 26 Feb - 3 Mar, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Presentations Citation: (2009). FEF neural responses during uninstructed, optimal eye movements in a free-viewing scan task. Front. Syst. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.06.2009.03.177 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 03 Feb 2009; Published Online: 03 Feb 2009. Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Google Google Scholar PubMed Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.