Neurons signalling the maintenance of attentive fixation in frontal area 6a beta of macaque monkey

Twelve out of 140 neurons recorded in a restricted region of the frontal agranular cortex (area 6a beta) of trained macaque monkeys, discharged only during attentive fixation of a target in the straight ahead position. These cells, lacking a visual receptive field, were silent when the animal's eye was in the same position during spontaneous oculomotor behaviour. Our preliminary results suggest that this area is involved in the codification of attentive fixation.