Premotor cortex in the rat.

Donoghue and Wise (1982) identified an area AGm in the rat that they take to be a nonprimary motor area. In the present experiments, therefore, this area was removed bilaterally in rats. The animals were poor at relearning a visual conditional motor task but were able to learn spatial delayed alternation as rapidly as unoperated animals. Thus removing this area in rats has a similar effect to removing premotor cortex in monkeys. It is argued that this dorsomedial shoulder area should not be regarded as part of prefrontal cortex in the rat.