Premotor cortex in the rat.
Passingham RE., Myers C., Rawlins N., Lightfoot V., Fearn S.
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.