Receptive field organization in macaque vlPFC neurons

While receptive fields (RFs) in ventral and dorsal visual areas are well characterized, their organization in the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), a region involved in visual processing and cognition, remains largely unexplored. We examined the RFs of 132 vlPFC neurons in macaque monkeys to characterize their spatial response properties, using extracellular recordings with a high-resolution, unbiased random-dot paradigm during passive viewing. Analysis revealed substantial heterogeneity in RF structure, allowing neurons to be classified into three types: uniform, full-field, and nonuniform. More than 85% of neurons exhibited large RFs with multiple high-response regions spanning broad portions of peripheral visual space. These findings reveal the complex organization of vlPFC neurons and provide a foundation for understanding how this region supports flexible visual processing and cognitive computations.