Stimulus Feature Detection by Neurons in Somatosensory Areas I and II of Primates

The responses of individual neurons in the cerebral cortex of unanesthetized macaques to moving cutaneous stimuli are described. In somatic sensory area I, 70 percent of the neurons studied exhibit a directional polarization to stimuli moving in opposite direction. In somatic sensory area II, the magnitude of responses is determined by more complex concatenations of stimulus properties, as regards direction of stimulus motion and site of stimulus application on the body.