Neuroscience and Neurobiology Commons^™

Cortical Representation Of Learning Social Interactions In Freely Moving Non-Human Primates, Melissa Franch

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

The motivation and capacity to be social is necessary for human survival. Successful learning of complex, prosocial behavior stems from the ability to perceive and respond to visual cues, such as the body language and facial expressions, from others in our environment. This dependence on visual information to guide social interaction is especially true for humans and non-human primates. Although recent studies in primate neurophysiology discovered neurons that can encode socially relevant variables, like reward and social actions, the underlying neural mechanisms of learning advanced social concepts, such as cooperation, are not well understood. Further, previous work has identified …

Spatial And State-Dependent Effects Of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Of Prefrontal Cortex In Non-Human Primates, Chao Gu

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The indirect effects of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) within a distributed neural network are still largely unknown. Here we propose to use the non-human primate (NHP) oculomotor system as an animal model for investigating the effects of TMS. Across three animals, single pulses of TMS to the prefrontal cortex (PFC), including the frontal eye fields (FEF), reliably evoked a contralateral head turning synergy, similar to what is seen following intracortical microstimulation. Furthermore, double pulses of TMS paired with the memory-guided saccade paradigm only evoked neck muscle activity preceding contralateral saccades, showing similar state-dependency as previously observed in human TMS studies. …

Exploring The Neural Basis Of Top-Down Guided Action In Macaque Monkeys, Jessica M. Phillips

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

To thoroughly characterize any brain mechanism requires an appropriate animal model for invasive studies. An invaluable model system used toward a comprehension of cognitive neurophysiology is the macaque monkey. It is important to delineate similarities and limitations for this model in relation to the human brain and cognition. In this thesis, we have thus conducted three experiments to investigate putative generalizations between monkeys and humans regarding the neural processes associated with top-down action control in monkeys.

Our daily behaviour is largely comprised of automatic routine actions. The frequent repetition of certain behaviours in response to particular contexts can give rise …