Frequency discrimination training engaging a restricted skin surface results in an emergence of a cutaneous response zone in cortical area 3a

G. H. Recanzone, M. M. Merzenich and W. M. Jenkins Coleman Laboratory, Department of Physiology, University of California, San Francisco 94143-0732. 1. The responses of cortical neurons evoked by cutaneous stimulation were investigated in the hand representation of cortical area 3a in adult owl monkeys that had been trained in a tactile frequency discrimination task. Cortical representations of the hands in these experimental hemispheres were compared with those representing the opposite, untrained hand, as well as with those representing a passively stimulated hand in a second class of control monkeys. 2. A large cutaneous representation of the hairy and glabrous skin surfaces of the hand emerged in area 3a in each trained hemisphere. 3. With the emergence of cutaneous responses recorded for neurons at many area 3a locations, the normally recorded deep receptor inputs were no longer evident at most of these locations. 4. There was a greater territory of representation of the small area of skin that was stimulated in the behavioral task in trained monkeys, when compared with the representations of corresponding skin sites in the opposite hemisphere of the same monkeys, or to the representations of equivalent skin sites stimulated in passively stimulated control monkeys. 5. There was great variability in the receptive-field properties of neurons responsive to cutaneous inputs among trained monkeys. In most recording sites within the representations of the behaviorally engaged hands, the cutaneous receptive fields were large, extending over a significant part of the glabrous or hairy surfaces of the hand. However, in one monkey, very small, topographically ordered cutaneous receptive fields were recorded over a wide zone of area 3a. 6. The physiologically defined borders between areas 3a and 3b were in register with the cytoarchitectonically defined borders between these two cortical areas in trained and in control monkeys. 7. This study demonstrates that there is a reorganization of the cutaneous and "deep" representation of hand in cortical area 3a, with the main change being an emergence of a large cutaneous representation and the parallel disappearance of a large part of the normal deep representation in this field. These changes are discussed in light of the possible functional roles of cortical area 3a.