scholarly journals Response properties of MST parafoveal neurons during smooth pursuit adaptation

2016 ◽  
Vol 116 (1) ◽  
pp. 210-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seiji Ono ◽  
Michael J. Mustari
Keyword(s):  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Time Course ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Visual Sensitivity ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Target Velocity ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Temporal Area

Visual motion neurons in the posterior parietal cortex play a critical role in the guidance of smooth pursuit eye movements. Initial pursuit (open-loop period) is driven, in part, by visual motion signals from cortical areas, such as the medial superior temporal area (MST). The purpose of this study was to determine whether adaptation of initial pursuit gain arises because of altered visual sensitivity of neurons at the cortical level. It is well known that the visual motion response in MST is suppressed after exposure to a large-field visual motion stimulus, showing visual motion adaptation. One hypothesis is that foveal motion responses in MST are associated with smooth pursuit adaptation using a small target spot. We used a step-ramp tracking task with two steps of target velocity (double-step paradigm), which induces gain-down or gain-up adaptation. We found that after gain-down adaptation 58% of our MST visual neurons showed a significant decrease in firing rate. This was the case even though visual motion input (before the pursuit onset) from target motion was constant. Therefore, repetitive visual stimulation during the gain-down paradigm could lead to adaptive changes in the visual response. However, the time course of adaptation did not show a correlation between the visual response and pursuit behavior. These results indicate that the visual response in MST may not directly contribute to the adaptive change in pursuit initiation.

Recovery of function after lesions in the superior temporal sulcus in the monkey

1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 651-673 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. S. Yamasaki ◽  
R. H. Wurtz
Keyword(s):  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Visual Fields ◽  
Ibotenic Acid ◽  
Superior Temporal Sulcus ◽  
Position Error ◽  
Eye Position ◽  
Motion Information ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Rate Of Recovery

1. Ibotenic acid lesions in the monkey's middle temporal area (MT) and the medial superior temporal area (MST) in the superior temporal sulcus (STS) have previously been shown to produce a deficit in initiation of smooth-pursuit eye movements to moving visual targets. The deficits, however, recovery within a few days. In the present experiments we investigated the factors that influence that recovery. 2. We tested two aspects of the monkey's ability to use motion information to acquire moving targets. We used eye-position error as a measure of the monkey's ability to make accurate initial saccades to the moving target. We measured eye speed within the first 100 ms after the saccade to evaluate the monkey's initial smooth pursuit. 3. We determined that pursuit recovery was not dependent specifically on the use of neurotoxic lesions. Although the rate of recovery was slightly altered by replacing the usual neurotoxin (ibotenic acid) with another neurotoxin [alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)] or with an electrolytic lesion, pursuit recovery still occurred within a period of days to weeks. 4. There was a relationship between the size and location of the lesion and the recovery time. The time to recovery for eye-position error and initial eye speed increased with the fraction of MT removed. Whether the rate of recovery and size of lesions within regions on the anterior bank were related was unresolved. 5. We found that a large AMPA lesion within the STS that removed all of MT and nearly all of MST drastically altered the rate of recovery. Recovery was incomplete more than 7 mo after the lesion. Even with this lesion, however, the monkey's ability to use motion information for pursuit was not completely eliminated. 6. The large lesion also included parts of areas V1, V2, V3, and V4, but analysis of the visual fields associated with this lesion indicated that these areas probably did not have a substantial effect on recovery. 7. We tested whether visual motion experience of the monkey after a lesion was necessary for recovery by limiting the monkey's experience either by using a mask or by using 4-Hz stroboscopic illumination. In one monkey the eye-position error component of pursuit was prolonged to greater than 2 wk, but recovery of eye speed was not. Reduced motion experience had little effect on recovery in the other two monkeys. These results suggest that such visual motion experience is not necessary for the recovery of pursuit.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

MST Neuronal Responses to Heading Direction During Pursuit Eye Movements

1999 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 596-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
William K. Page ◽  
Charles J. Duffy
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Neuronal Population ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Neuronal Responses ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Heading Direction ◽  
Monkey Visual Cortex

MST neuronal responses to heading direction during pursuit eye movements. As you move through the environment, you see a radial pattern of visual motion with a focus of expansion (FOE) that indicates your heading direction. When self-movement is combined with smooth pursuit eye movements, the turning of the eye distorts the retinal image of the FOE but somehow you still can perceive heading. We studied neurons in the medial superior temporal area (MST) of monkey visual cortex, recording responses to FOE stimuli presented during fixation and smooth pursuit eye movements. Almost all neurons showed significant changes in their FOE selective responses during pursuit eye movements. However, the vector average of all the neuronal responses indicated the direction of the FOE during both fixation and pursuit. Furthermore, the amplitude of the net vector increased with increasing FOE eccentricity. We conclude that neuronal population encoding in MST might contribute to pursuit-tolerant heading perception.

Relation of cortical areas MT and MST to pursuit eye movements. III. Interaction with full-field visual stimulation

1988 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 621-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Komatsu ◽  
R. H. Wurtz
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Field Stimulation ◽  
Small Field ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Preferred Direction ◽  
Small Spot ◽  
Spot Motion

1. Pursuit eye movements are usually made against a visual background that is moved across the retina by the pursuit movement. We have investigated the effect of this visual stimulation on the response of pursuit cells that lie within the superior temporal sulcus (STS) of the monkey. 2. We assigned these pursuit cells to one of two groups depending on the nature of their preferred visual stimulus. One group of cells, comprising all cells located in the dorsal-medial region of the medial superior temporal area (MSTd) and some cells in lateral-anterior MST (MST1), responded to the motion of a large patterned field but showed little or no response to small spots or slits. The other group, consisting of all foveal middle temporal area (MTf) cells and many MST1 cells, responded preferentially to small spot motion or equally well to small spot motion or large field. 3. For many pursuit cells that preferred large-field stimuli, the visual response showed a reversal of the preferred direction of motion as the size of the stimulus field increased. The reversal usually occurred as the size of the moving random-dot field used as a stimulus increased in size from 20 x 20 degrees to 30 x 30 degrees for motion at approximately 10 degrees/s. The size of the filed stimulus leading to reversal of preferred direction depended on the speed of stimulus motion. Higher speeds of motion required larger stimulus fields to produce a reversal of preferred direction. This reversal (of preferred direction) did not reflect a center-surround organization of the receptive field but seemed to reflect the spatial summation properties of these cells. 4. For three-quarters of the cells that preferred large-field stimulation, the preferred direction of motion for the large field was opposite to the preferred direction of the pursuit response. The remaining cells showed either the same preferred directions for large-field visual stimulation and the pursuit response or had bidirectional visual responses. If we consider only the cells that show a reversal of preferred direction for large- and small-field stimuli, the preferred direction for the large field was always the opposite to that of pursuit, and the preferred direction for the small field was always the same. 5. During pursuit against a lighted background, the cells that showed opposite preferred directions for large-field stimulation and pursuit had synergistic responses--a facilitation of the pursuit response over the response during pursuit in the dark. Slow pursuit speeds (less than 20 degrees/s) produced the greatest facilitation.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

scholarly journals Functional specialization in the middle temporal area for smooth pursuit initiation

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahab Bakhtiari ◽  
Christopher C. Pack
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Sensory Information ◽  
Target Velocity ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Middle Temporal ◽  
Mt Neurons ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Pursuit Initiation

Smooth pursuit eye movements have frequently been used to model sensorimotor transformations in the brain. In particular, the initiation phase of pursuit can be understood as a transformation of a sensory estimate of target velocity into an eye rotation. Despite careful laboratory controls on the stimulus conditions, pursuit eye movements are frequently observed to exhibit considerable trial-to-trial variability. In theory, this variability can be caused by the variability in sensory representation of target motion, or by the variability in the transformation of sensory information to motor commands. Previous work has shown that neural variability in the middle temporal (MT) area is likely propagated to the oculomotor command, and there is evidence to suggest that the magnitude of this variability is sufficient to account for the variability of pursuit initiation. This line of reasoning presumes that the MT population is homogeneous with respect to its contribution to pursuit initiation.  At the same time, there is evidence that pursuit initiation is strongly linked to a subpopulation of MT neurons (those with strong surround suppression) that collectively generate less motor variability. To distinguish between these possibilities, we have combined human psychophysics, monkey electrophysiology, and computational modeling to examine how the pursuit system reads out the MT population during pursuit initiation. We find that the psychophysical data are best accounted for by a model that gives stronger weight to surround-suppressed MT neurons, suggesting that variability in the initiation of pursuit could arise from multiple sources along the sensorimotor transformation.

Influence of Gaze Rotation on the Visual Response of Primate MSTd Neurons

1999 ◽  
Vol 81 (6) ◽  
pp. 2764-2786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krishna V. Shenoy ◽  
David C. Bradley ◽  
Richard A. Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Visual Motion ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Head Rotation ◽  
Intermediate Stage ◽  
Whole Body ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Retinal Position ◽  
Gaze Tracking ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Head Rotations

Influence of gaze rotation on the visual response of primate MSTd neurons. When we move forward, the visual image on our retina expands. Humans rely on the focus, or center, of this expansion to estimate their direction of heading and, as long as the eyes are still, the retinal focus corresponds to the heading. However, smooth rotation of the eyes adds nearly uniform visual motion to the expanding retinal image and causes a displacement of the retinal focus. In spite of this, humans accurately judge their heading during pursuit eye movements and during active, smooth head rotations even though the retinal focus no longer corresponds to the heading. Recent studies in macaque suggest that correction for pursuit may occur in the dorsal aspect of the medial superior temporal area (MSTd) because these neurons are tuned to the retinal position of the focus and they modify their tuning during pursuit to compensate partially for the focus shift. However, the question remains whether these neurons also shift focus tuning to compensate for smooth head rotations that commonly occur during gaze tracking. To investigate this question, we recorded from 80 MSTd neurons while monkeys tracked a visual target either by pursuing with their eyes or by vestibulo-ocular reflex cancellation (VORC; whole-body rotation with eyes fixed in head and head fixed on body). VORC is a passive, smooth head rotation condition that selectively activates the vestibular canals. We found that neurons shift their focus tuning in a similar way whether focus displacement is caused by pursuit or by VORC. Across the population, compensation averaged 88 and 77% during pursuit and VORC, respectively (tuning shift divided by the retinal focus to true heading difference). Moreover the degree of compensation during pursuit and VORC was correlated in individual cells ( P< 0.001). Finally neurons that did not compensate appreciably tended to be gain-modulated during pursuit and VORC and may constitute an intermediate stage in the compensation process. These results indicate that many MSTd cells compensate for general gaze rotation, whether produced by eye-in-head or head-in-world rotation, and further implicate MSTd as a critical stage in the computation of heading. Interestingly vestibular cues present during VORC allow many cells to compensate even though humans do not accurately judge their heading in this condition. This suggests that MSTd may use vestibular information to create a compensated heading representation within at least a subpopulation of cells, which is accessed perceptually only when additional cues related to active head rotations are also present.

Ventral intraparietal area of the macaque: anatomic location and visual response properties

1993 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 902-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Colby ◽  
J. R. Duhamel ◽  
M. E. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Visual Motion ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Intraparietal Sulcus ◽  
Stimulus Motion ◽  
Area Mt ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Response Properties ◽  
Preferred Direction ◽  
The Face ◽  
Ventral Intraparietal Area

1. The middle temporal area (MT) projects to the intraparietal sulcus in the macaque monkey. We describe here a discrete area in the depths of the intraparietal sulcus containing neurons with response properties similar to those reported for area MT. We call this area the physiologically defined ventral intraparietal area, or VIP. In the present study we recorded from single neurons in VIP of alert monkeys and studied their visual and oculomotor response properties. 2. Area VIP has a high degree of selectivity for the direction of a moving stimulus. In our sample 72/88 (80%) neurons responded at least twice as well to a stimulus moving in the preferred direction compared with a stimulus moving in the null direction. The average response to stimuli moving in the preferred direction was 9.5 times as strong as the response to stimuli moving in the opposite direction, as compared with 10.9 times as strong for neurons in area MT. 3. Many neurons were also selective for speed of stimulus motion. Quantitative data from 25 neurons indicated that the distribution of preferred speeds ranged from 10 to 320 degrees/s. The degree of speed tuning was on average twice as broad as that reported for area MT. 4. Some neurons (22/41) were selective for the distance at which a stimulus was presented, preferring a stimulus of equivalent visual angle and luminance presented near (within 20 cm) or very near (within 5 cm) the face. These neurons maintained their preference for near stimuli when tested monocularly, suggesting that visual cues other than disparity can support this response. These neurons typically could not be driven by small spots presented on the tangent screen (at 57 cm). 5. Some VIP neurons responded best to a stimulus moving toward the animal. The absolute direction of visual motion was not as important for these cells as the trajectory of the stimulus: the best stimulus was one moving toward a particular point on the face from any direction. 6. VIP neurons were not active in relation to saccadic eye movements. Some neurons (10/17) were active during smooth pursuit of a small target. 7. The predominance of direction and speed selectivity in area VIP suggests that it, like other visual areas in the dorsal stream, may be involved in the analysis of visual motion.

scholarly journals Motion dependence of smooth pursuit eye movements in the marmoset

2015 ◽  
Vol 113 (10) ◽  
pp. 3954-3960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jude F. Mitchell ◽  
Nicholas J. Priebe ◽  
Cory T. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Genetic Model ◽  
Mental Disease ◽  
Target Velocity ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Slow Moving ◽  
Eye Velocity

Smooth pursuit eye movements stabilize slow-moving objects on the retina by matching eye velocity with target velocity. Two critical components are required to generate smooth pursuit: first, because it is a voluntary eye movement, the subject must select a target to pursue to engage the tracking system; and second, generating smooth pursuit requires a moving stimulus. We examined whether this behavior also exists in the common marmoset, a New World primate that is increasingly attracting attention as a genetic model for mental disease and systems neuroscience. We measured smooth pursuit in two marmosets, previously trained to perform fixation tasks, using the standard Rashbass step-ramp pursuit paradigm. We first measured the aspects of visual motion that drive pursuit eye movements. Smooth eye movements were in the same direction as target motion, indicating that pursuit was driven by target movement rather than by displacement. Both the open-loop acceleration and closed-loop eye velocity exhibited a linear relationship with target velocity for slow-moving targets, but this relationship declined for higher speeds. We next examined whether marmoset pursuit eye movements depend on an active engagement of the pursuit system by measuring smooth eye movements evoked by small perturbations of motion from fixation or during pursuit. Pursuit eye movements were much larger during pursuit than from fixation, indicating that pursuit is actively gated. Several practical advantages of the marmoset brain, including the accessibility of the middle temporal (MT) area and frontal eye fields at the cortical surface, merit its utilization for studying pursuit movements.

scholarly journals Task-specific, dimension-based attentional shaping of motion processing in area MT

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bastian Schledde ◽  
F. Orlando Galashan ◽  
Magdalena Przybyla ◽  
Andreas K. Kreiter ◽  
Detlef Wegener
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Visual Motion ◽  
Color Change ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Specific Response ◽  
Area Mt ◽  
Temporal Area ◽  
Baseline Activity ◽  
Feature Dimension

AbstractNon-spatial selective attention is based on the notion that specific features or objects in the visual environment are effectively prioritized in cortical visual processing. Feature-based attention (FBA) in particular, is a well-studied process that dynamically and selectively enhances neurons preferentially processing the attended feature attribute (e.g. leftward motion). In everyday life, however, behavior may require high sensitivity for an entire feature dimension (e.g. motion). Yet, evidence for feature dimension-specific attentional modulation on a cellular level is lacking. We here investigate neuronal activity in macaque motion-selective medio-temporal area (MT) in an experimental setting requiring the monkeys to detect either a motion change or a color change. We hypothesized that neural activity in MT is enhanced if the task requires perceptual sensitivity to motion. Despite identical visual stimulation, we found that mean firing rates were higher in the motion task, and response variability and latency were lower as compared to the color task. This task-specific response modulation in the processing of visual motion was independent from the relation between attended and stimulating motion direction. It emerged already in the absence of visual input, and consisted of a spatially global and tuning-independent shift of the MT baseline activity. The results provide single cell support for the hypothesis of a feature dimension-specific top-down signal emphasizing the processing of an entire feature class.

Relation of cortical areas MT and MST to pursuit eye movements. II. Differentiation of retinal from extraretinal inputs

1988 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 604-620 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. T. Newsome ◽  
R. H. Wurtz ◽  
H. Komatsu
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Visual Target ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Visual Response ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Pursuit Movement ◽  
Initial Motion ◽  
Stimulation Of

1. We investigated cells in the middle temporal visual area (MT) and the medial superior temporal area (MST) that discharged during smooth pursuit of a dim target in an otherwise dark room. For each of these pursuit cells we determined whether the response during pursuit originated from visual stimulation of the retina by the pursuit target or from an extraretinal input related to the pursuit movement itself. We distinguished between these alternatives by removing the visual motion stimulus during pursuit either by blinking off the visual target briefly or by stabilizing the target on the retina. 2. In the foveal representation of MT (MTf), we found that pursuit cells usually decreased their rate of discharge during a blink or during stabilization of the visual target. The pursuit response of these cells depends on visual stimulation of the retina by the pursuit target. 3. In a dorsal-medial region of MST (MSTd), cells continued to respond during pursuit despite a blink or stabilization of the pursuit target. The pursuit response of these cells is dependent on an extraretinal input. 4. In a lateral-anterior region of MST (MST1), we found both types of pursuit cells; some, like those in MTf, were dependent on visual inputs whereas others, like those in MSTd, received an extraretinal input. 5. We observed a relationship between pursuit responses and passive visual responses. MST cells whose pursuit responses were attributable to extraretinal inputs tended to respond preferentially to large-field random-dot patterns. Some cells that preferred small spots also had an extraretinal input. 6. For 92% of the pursuit cells we studied, the pursuit response began after onset of the pursuit eye movement. A visual response preceding onset of the eye movement could be observed in many of these cells if the initial motion of the target occurred within the visual receptive field of the cell and in its preferred direction. In contrast to the pursuit response, however, this visual response was not dependent on execution of the pursuit movement. 7. For the remaining 8% of the pursuit cells, the pursuit discharge began before initiation of the pursuit eye movement. This occurred even though the initial motion of the target was outside the receptive field as mapped during fixation trials. Our data suggest, however, that such responses may be attributable to an expansion of the receptive field that accompanies enhanced visual responses.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Response properties of dorsolateral pontine units during smooth pursuit in the rhesus macaque

1988 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 664-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Mustari ◽  
A. F. Fuchs ◽  
J. Wallman
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Smooth Pursuit ◽  
Visual Sensitivity ◽  
Large Field ◽  
Motion Processing ◽  
Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Pontine Nucleus ◽  
Stimulus Velocity ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Motion Processing

1. The anatomical connections of the dorsolateral pontine nucleus (DLPN) implicate it in the production of smooth-pursuit eye movements. It receives inputs from cortical structures believed to be involved in visual motion processing (middle temporal cortex) or motion execution (posterior parietal cortex) and projects to the flocculus of the cerebellum, which is involved in smooth pursuit. To determine the role of the DLPN in smooth pursuit, we have studied the discharge patterns of 191 DLPN neurons in five monkeys trained to make smooth-pursuit eye movements of a spot moving either across a patterned background or in darkness. 2. Four unit types could be distinguished. Visual units (15%) discharged in response to movement of a large textured pattern, often in a direction-selective fashion but not during smooth pursuit of a spot in the dark. Eye movement neurons (31%) discharged during sinusoidal smooth pursuit in the dark with peak discharge rate either at peak eye position or peak eye velocity, but they showed no response during background movement or during other visual stimulation. These units continued to discharge when the target was extinguished (blanked) briefly, and the monkey continued to make smooth eye movements in the dark. The majority (54%) of our DLPN units discharged during both smooth pursuit in the dark and background movement while the monkey fixated. Blanking the target during smooth pursuit revealed that these units fell into two distinct classes. Visual pursuit units ceased discharging during a blank, suggesting that they had only a visual sensitivity. Pursuit and visual units continued to discharge during the blank, indicating that they had a combined oculomotor and visual sensitivity. 3. Ninety-five percent of the units that discharged during smooth pursuit were direction selective. These units had rather broad directional tuning curves with widths at half height ranging from 65 to 180 degrees. Many preferred directions for DLPN units were observed, although the vertical and near-vertical directions predominated. 4. Most units that responded to large-field background movement were direction selective. During sinusoidal movement of a large-field background, half of them also discharged in relation to stimulus velocity, whereas others did not.

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