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Updated: May 10, 2026

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings
Published on: August 1, 2018
Neuronal correlates of a visual "sense of number" in primate parietal and prefrontal cortices
Pooja Viswanathan1, Andreas Nieder
1Animal Physiology, Institute of Neurobiology, University of Tübingen, 72076 Tübingen, Germany.
Abstract:
"Sense of number" refers to the classical idea that we perceive the number of items (numerosity) intuitively. However, whether the brain signals numerosity spontaneously, in the absence of learning, remains unknown; therefore, we recorded from neurons in the ventral intraparietal sulcus and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex of numerically naive monkeys. Neurons in both brain areas responded maximally to a given number of items, showing tuning to a preferred numerosity. Numerosity was encoded earlier in area ventral intraparietal area, suggesting that numerical information is conveyed from the parietal to the frontal lobe. Visual numerosity is thus spontaneously represented as a perceptual category in a dedicated parietofrontal network. This network may form the biological foundation of a spontaneous number sense, allowing primates to intuitively estimate the number of visual items.
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