Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience Integrative Neuroscience

Abstract

during the delay period and fail to fire differentially in advance of premature responses (Narayanan and Laubach, 2006). These results suggest that mPFC has a role in the top–down control of action, specifically in limiting inappropriate responding during the delay period. Anatomical tract-tracing studies have consistently reported weak connections between mPFC and the primary motor cortex (in the lateral agranular cortex) and a lack of convergent connections from mPFC and the motor cortex to subcortical motor areas such as the ventrolateral thalamus, red nucleus, and the ventral horn of the spinal cord (Sesack et al. However, a recent study by Wang et al. (2008) reported projections from the anterior, but not the posterior, cin-gulate cortex from the orofacial and forelimb somatosensory and motor cortices. The rostral (or secondary) motor cortex, located in the medial agranular cortex has consistently been shown to have major connections with the caudal " primary " motor cortex (Reep et al. area may be a " medial wall " motor area (Picard and Strick, 1996) in rodents which has clear homologies to dorsomedial areas in primates (Preuss, 1995).