Video game for monkeys.

Recent progress in neurophysiological recording has developed in two directions. One relies on multimicroelectrodes to study correlations in neuron firing. The other relies on sophisticated tasks to distinguish successive stages of neuronal processing.

Neurons that program what to do and in what order.

In this issue of Neuron, describe the activity of single neurons in the SEF of monkeys, an oculomotor area of the frontal lobe, during the performance of stereotyped sequences of saccades. The monkey had to look at one of two identical stimuli, but the only way to choose the "correct" stimulus was to learn and remember its position in each presentation of the sequence. SEF neurons could do it.