Visuomotor Functions in the Frontal Lobe

Abstract

This review surveys how vision becomes action through the frontal lobe. Signals from extrastriate areas create maps in frontal areas. These maps are shaped by visual features and shaded by goals, values, and experience, and they guide contingent activation of motor circuits to execute coordinated gaze, head, and limb movements. Frontal circuits also support the visual perception of learned objects, events, and actions. Other frontal circuits monitor consequences and exert executive control to improve the effectiveness of visually guided behavior.

Individual differences in visual motion perception and neurotransmitter concentrations in the human brain

“…Our further speculation is based on the fact that the BA 46 region of the PFC is located at the top of the anatomical hierarchy of the prefrontal areas [36,45]. As motion assimilation and contrast are perceived antagonistically (figure 1b), a final percept must be determined at a higher stage of visual motion processing.…”

“…B 372: 20160111 execute cognitive functions is related to the interindividual variability in the perception of visual motion. As described above, the neurons in the PFC (BA 46) exhibit motion sensitivity [38,39] and function to allocate attention to a visual target in the object-centred coordinate [36,37], while a higherorder, attention-driven motion mechanism functioning on the spatiotopic coordinate would be responsible for the induction of motion assimilation [12,21,22]. Additionally, a relationship between Glx concentrations and the function of attention has been found in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) [40] or autism spectrum disorders (ASD) [41].…”

“…As motion assimilation and contrast are perceived antagonistically (figure 1b), a final percept must be determined at a higher stage of visual motion processing. As the PFC would play a key role in the function required for decision making [35][36][37], it is possible that the excitatory mechanism in the PFC is important for determining the final percept of visual motion. If so, motion assimilation should be a preferable alternative to motion contrast, as the PFC itself could be one of the possible neural sites for inducing motion assimilation.…”

“…Thus, we examined whether neurotransmitter concentrations in the dorsolateral PFC (Brodmann area BA 46) are correlated with individual differences in motion perception. We targeted this area because neurons inside are involved in attention allocation to a target in an object-centred coordinate [35,36], they are connected with the visual areas including the MT [37], and they encode both visual motion direction and speed information [38,39]. We expected that the Glx is important because its concentration has been shown to be related to the attentional status [40,41], which could affect perception of motion assimilation.…”

Transient Pupil Dilation after Subsaccadic Microstimulation of Primate Frontal Eye Fields

“…The FEFs are heavily interconnected with the SCi and implicated in the generation and top-down cognitive control of saccadic eye movements (for review, see Schall, 2015). FEF activity has been related to many cognitive processes associated with pupillary changes, such as task consolidation (Everling and Munoz, 2000), visuospatial attention (Gregoriou et al, 2014), and decision making (Schall and Bichot, 1998;Gold and Shadlen, 2000;Costello et al, 2013).…”