scholarly journals Integration of Eye-Centered and Landmark-Centered Codes in Frontal Eye Field Gaze Responses

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 4995-5013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Bharmauria ◽  
Amirsaman Sajad ◽  
Jirui Li ◽  
Xiaogang Yan ◽  
Hongying Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Target Position ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Cellular Mechanisms ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Field Activity ◽  
Eye Field

Abstract The visual system is thought to separate egocentric and allocentric representations, but behavioral experiments show that these codes are optimally integrated to influence goal-directed movements. To test if frontal cortex participates in this integration, we recorded primate frontal eye field activity during a cue-conflict memory delay saccade task. To dissociate egocentric and allocentric coordinates, we surreptitiously shifted a visual landmark during the delay period, causing saccades to deviate by 37% in the same direction. To assess the cellular mechanisms, we fit neural response fields against an egocentric (eye-centered target-to-gaze) continuum, and an allocentric shift (eye-to-landmark-centered) continuum. Initial visual responses best-fit target position. Motor responses (after the landmark shift) predicted future gaze position but embedded within the motor code was a 29% shift toward allocentric coordinates. This shift appeared transiently in memory-related visuomotor activity, and then reappeared in motor activity before saccades. Notably, fits along the egocentric and allocentric shift continua were initially independent, but became correlated across neurons just before the motor burst. Overall, these results implicate frontal cortex in the integration of egocentric and allocentric visual information for goal-directed action, and demonstrate the cell-specific, temporal progression of signal multiplexing for this process in the gaze system.

scholarly journals Integration of eye-centered and landmark-centered codes in frontal eye field gaze responses

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vishal Bharmauria ◽  
Amirsaman Sajad ◽  
Jirui Li ◽  
Xiaogang Yan ◽  
Hongying Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Target Position ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Cellular Mechanisms ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Saccade Task

ABSTRACTThe visual system is thought to separate egocentric and allocentric representations, but behavioral experiments show that these codes are optimally integrated to influence goal-directed movements. To test if frontal cortex participates in this integration process, we recorded primate frontal eye field (FEF) activity during a cue-conflict memory delay saccade task. To dissociate egocentric and allocentric coordinates, we surreptitiously shifted a visual landmark during the delay period, causing saccades to deviate by 37% in the same direction. To assess the cellular mechanisms, we fit neural response fields against an egocentric (eye centered target-to-gaze) continuum, and an allocentric shift (eye-to-landmark centered) continuum. Initial visual responses best fit target position. Motor responses (after the landmark shift) predicted future gaze position but embedded within the motor code was a 29% shift toward allocentric coordinates. This shift appeared transiently in memory-related visuomotor activity, and then reappeared in motor activity before saccades. Notably, fits along the egocentric and allocentric shift continua were initially independent, but became correlated just before the motor burst. Overall, these results implicate frontal cortex in the integration of egocentric and allocentric visual information for goal-directed action, and demonstrate the cell-specific, temporal progression of signal multiplexing for this process in the gaze system.

scholarly journals What the Brain Stem Tells the Frontal Cortex. I. Oculomotor Signals Sent From Superior Colliculus to Frontal Eye Field Via Mediodorsal Thalamus

2004 ◽  
Vol 91 (3) ◽  
pp. 1381-1402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc A. Sommer ◽  
Robert H. Wurtz
Keyword(s):  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Brain Stem ◽  
Signal Transmission ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Mediodorsal Thalamus ◽  
Visual Activity ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
The Brain

Neuronal processing in cerebral cortex and signal transmission from cortex to brain stem have been studied extensively, but little is known about the numerous feedback pathways that ascend from brain stem to cortex. In this study, we characterized the signals conveyed through an ascending pathway coursing from the superior colliculus (SC) to the frontal eye field (FEF) via mediodorsal thalamus (MD). Using antidromic and orthodromic stimulation, we identified SC source neurons, MD relay neurons, and FEF recipient neurons of the pathway in Macaca mulatta. The monkeys performed oculomotor tasks, including delayed-saccade tasks, that permitted analysis of signals such as visual activity, delay activity, and presaccadic activity. We found that the SC sends all of these signals into the pathway with no output selectivity, i.e., the signals leaving the SC resembled those found generally within the SC. Visual activity arrived in FEF too late to contribute to short-latency visual responses there, and delay activity was largely filtered out in MD. Presaccadic activity, however, seemed critical because it traveled essentially unchanged from SC to FEF. Signal transmission in the pathway was fast (∼2 ms from SC to FEF) and topographically organized (SC neurons drove MD and FEF neurons having similarly eccentric visual and movement fields). Our analysis of identified neurons in one pathway from brain stem to frontal cortex thus demonstrates that multiple signals are sent from SC to FEF with presaccadic activity being prominent. We hypothesize that a major signal conveyed by the pathway is corollary discharge information about the vector of impending saccades.

Spatial Processing in the Monkey Frontal Eye Field. I. Predictive Visual Responses

1997 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 1373-1383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc M. Umeno ◽  
Michael E. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Target Position ◽  
Spatial Processing ◽  
Explicit Calculation ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Visual Cells ◽  
Eye Field

Umeno, M. M. and Goldberg, M. E. Spatial processing in the monkey frontal eye field. I. Predictive visual responses. J. Neurophysiol. 78: 1373–1383, 1997. Neurons in the lateral intraparietal area and intermediate layers of the superior colliculus show predictive visual responses. They respond before an impending saccade to a stimulus that will be brought into their receptive field by that saccade. In these experiments we sought to establish whether the monkey frontal eye field had a similar predictive response. We recorded from 100 presaccadic frontal eye field neurons (32 visual cells, 48 visuomovement cells, and 20 movement cells) with the use of the classification criteria of Bruce and Goldberg. We studied each cell in a continuous stimulus task, where the monkey made a saccade that brought a recently appearing stimulus into its receptive field. The latency of response in the continuous stimulus task varied from 52 ms before the saccade to 272 ms after the saccade. We classified cells as having predictive visual responses if their latency in the continuous stimulus task was less than the latency of their visual on response to a stimulus in their receptive or movement field as described in a visual fixation task. Thirty-four percent (11 of 32) of the visual cells, 31% (15 of 48) of the visuomovement cells, and no (0 of 20) movement cells showed a predictive visual response. The cells with predictive responses never responded to the stimulus when the monkey did not make the saccade that would bring that stimulus into the receptive field, and never discharged in association with that saccade unless it brought a stimulus into the receptive field. The response in the continuous stimulus task was almost always weaker than the visual on response to a stimulus flashed in the receptive field. Because cells with visual responses but not cells with movement activity alone showed the effect, we conclude that the predictive visual response is a property of the visual processing in the frontal eye field, i.e., a response to the stimulus in the future receptive field. It is not dependent on the actual planning or execution of a saccade to that stimulus. We suggest that the predictive visual mechanism is one in which the brain dynamically calculates the spatial location of objects in terms of desired displacement. This enables the oculomotor system to perform in a spatially accurate manner when there is a dissonance between the retinal location of a target and the saccade necessary to acquire that target. This mechanism does not require an explicit calculation of target position in some supraretinal coordinatesystem.

Frontal eye field activity preceding aurally guided saccades

1994 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 1250-1253 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. S. Russo ◽  
C. J. Bruce
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Location ◽  
Auditory Target ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visually Guided ◽  
Movement Vector ◽  
Initial Fixation ◽  
Field Activity ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Movement Field ◽  
Visual Targets

1. We studied neuronal activity in the monkey's frontal eye field (FEF) in conjunction with saccades directed to auditory targets. 2. All FEF neurons with movement activity preceding saccades to visual targets also were active preceding saccades to auditory targets, even when such saccades were made in the dark. Movement cells generally had comparable bursts for aurally and visually guided saccades; visuomovement cells often had weaker bursts in conjunction with aurally guided saccades. 3. When these cells were tested from different initial fixation directions, movement fields associated with aurally guided saccades, like fields mapped with visual targets, were a function of saccade dimensions, and not the speaker's spatial location. Thus, even though sound location cues are chiefly craniotopic, the crucial factor for a FEF discharge before aurally guided saccades was the location of auditory target relative to the current direction of gaze. 4. Intracortical microstimulation at the sites of these cells evoked constant-vector saccades, and not goal-directed saccades. The direction and size of electrically elicited saccades generally matched the cell's movement field for aurally guided saccades. 5. Thus FEF activity appears to have a role in aurally guided as well as visually guided saccades. Moreover, visual and auditory target representations, although initially obtained in different coordinate systems, appear to converge to a common movement vector representation at the FEF stage of saccadic processing that is appropriate for transmittal to saccade-related burst neurons in the superior colliculus and pons.

scholarly journals Disparity Sensitivity of Frontal Eye Field Neurons

2000 ◽  
Vol 83 (1) ◽  
pp. 625-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Ferraina ◽  
Martin Paré ◽  
Robert H. Wurtz
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Motor Processes ◽  
Uncrossed Disparity ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Three Dimensional Space

Information about depth is necessary to generate saccades to visual stimuli located in three-dimensional space. To determine whether monkey frontal eye field (FEF) neurons play a role in the visuo-motor processes underlying this behavior, we studied their visual responses to stimuli at different disparities. Disparity sensitivity was tested from 3° of crossed disparity (near) to 3° degrees of uncrossed disparity (far). The responses of about two thirds of FEF visual and visuo-movement neurons were sensitive to disparity and showed a broad tuning in depth for near or far disparities. Early phasic and late tonic visual responses often displayed different disparity sensitivity. These findings provide evidence of depth-related signals in FEF and suggest a role for FEF in the control of disconjugate as well as conjugate eye movements.

scholarly journals Landmark-Centered Coding in Frontal Cortex Visual Responses

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian Schütz ◽  
Vishal Bharmauria ◽  
Xiaogang Yan ◽  
Hongying Wang ◽  
Frank Bremmer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Visual Space ◽  
List Type ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Visual Landmarks ◽  
Specific Target ◽  
Visual Coding ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Landmark Configuration

SummaryVisual landmarks influence spatial cognition [1–3], navigation [4,5] and goal-directed behavior [6–8], but their influence on visual coding in sensorimotor systems is poorly understood [6,9–11]. We hypothesized that visual responses in frontal cortex control gaze areas encode potential targets in an intermediate gaze-centered / landmark-centered reference frame that might depend on specific target-landmark configurations rather than a global mechanism. We tested this hypothesis by recording neural activity in the frontal eye fields (FEF) and supplementary eye fields (SEF) while head-unrestrained macaques engaged in a memory-delay gaze task. Visual response fields (the area of visual space where targets modulate activity) were tested for each neuron in the presence of a background landmark placed at one of four oblique configurations relative to the target stimulus. 102 of 312 FEF and 43 of 256 SEF neurons showed spatially tuned response fields in this task. We then fit these data against a mathematical continuum between a gaze-centered model and a landmark-centered model. When we pooled data across the entire dataset for each neuron, our response field fits did not deviate significantly from the gaze-centered model. However, when we fit response fields separately for each target-landmark configuration, the best fits shifted (mean 37% / 40%) toward landmark-centered coding in FEF / SEF respectively. This confirmed an intermediate gaze / landmark-centered mechanism dependent on local (configuration-dependent) interactions. Overall, these data show that external landmarks influence prefrontal visual responses, likely helping to stabilize gaze goals in the presence of variable eye and head orientations.HighlightsPrefrontal visual responses recorded in the presence of visual landmarksResponse fields showed intermediate gaze / landmark-centered organizationThis influence depended on specific target-landmark configurations

Predictive human pursuit and "orbital goal" of microstimulated smooth eye movements

1995 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 1358-1361 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. van Gelder ◽  
S. Lebedev ◽  
W. H. Tsui
Keyword(s):  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Human Subjects ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Common Point ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Moving Target ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Target Trajectory ◽  
Eye Field ◽  
Normal Human

1. Anticipatory saccades in smooth pursuit move the point of gaze from near the moving target to well ahead of it, interrupting accurate smooth pursuit. Their effects on the pursuit process were studied in 22 normal human subjects. We presented horizontal periodic target trajectories of 30 degrees amplitude and 30 degrees/s constant velocity or 0.4 Hz sinusoidal velocity in 40-s trials. Saccades and surrounding smooth eye movement (SEM) segments were marked and classified by computer. 2. Anticipatory saccades were often followed by slowed SEM that tended to intercept the target at the endpoint of its trajectory. This was seen in the distribution of projections of the initial 60 ms of postsaccadic SEM to the time of the trajectory endpoint. Magnitude of this SEM tended to follow a function of the time and location of the endpoint of the anticipatory saccade, decreasing as the anticipatory saccades landed closer to the trajectory endpoint. 3. The time and location of the target trajectory endpoint seemed to be the goal for this SEM. We believe this to demonstrate the predictive use of the period and amplitude of the trajectory in smooth pursuit, apart from the instantaneous velocity match of the target. 4. Gottlieb and coworkers in the frontal eye field and Ron and Robinson in the cerebellum produced SEMs in the monkey by microstimulation. At some sites in both structures, direction and velocity of the SEMs depended on the initial position of the eye in that the elicited SEMs appeared to be converging toward a common point, or "orbital goal", and the SEM velocity diminished as the gaze neared that goal.2+ Both our SEM after anticipatory saccades and microstimulated SEM in the monkey slowed as the initial position was brought closer to the inferred orbital goal. This similarity suggests that the goal-directed SEM sites in the monkey might be part of a mechanism for predictive pursuit.

Topographic Maps in Human Frontal Cortex Revealed in Memory-Guided Saccade and Spatial Working-Memory Tasks

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 3494-3507 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sabine Kastner ◽  
Kevin DeSimone ◽  
Christina S. Konen ◽  
Sara M. Szczepanski ◽  
Kevin S. Weiner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Frontal Cortex ◽  
Spatial Working Memory ◽  
Memory Task ◽  
Topographic Maps ◽  
Button Press ◽  
Frontal Eye Field ◽  
Topographic Organization ◽  
Human Frontal Cortex ◽  
Eye Field

We used fMRI at 3 Tesla and improved spatial resolution (2 × 2 × 2 mm3) to investigate topographic organization in human frontal cortex using memory-guided response tasks performed at 8 or 12 peripheral locations arranged clockwise around a central fixation point. The tasks required the location of a peripheral target to be remembered for several seconds after which the subjects either made a saccade to the remembered location (memory-guided saccade task) or judged whether a test stimulus appeared in the same or a slightly different location by button press (spatial working-memory task). With these tasks, we found two topographic maps in each hemisphere, one in the superior branch of precentral cortex and caudalmost part of the superior frontal sulcus, in the region of the human frontal eye field, and a second in the inferior branch of precentral cortex and caudalmost part of the inferior frontal sulcus, both of which greatly overlapped with activations evoked by visually guided saccades. In each map, activated voxels coded for saccade directions and memorized locations predominantly in the contralateral hemifield with neighboring saccade directions and memorized locations represented in adjacent locations of the map. Particular saccade directions or memorized locations were often represented in multiple locations of the map. The topographic activation patterns showed individual variability from subject to subject but were reproducible within subjects. Notably, only saccade-related activation, but no topographic organization, was found in the region of the human supplementary eye field in dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. Together these results show that topographic organization can be revealed outside sensory cortical areas using more complex behavioral tasks.

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