Visual and presaccadic neuronal activity in thalamic internal medullary lamina of cat: a study of targeting

1977 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Schlag-Rey ◽  
J. Schlag
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Stimulus Presentation ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Stimulus Movement ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Double Activation ◽  
Alert Cats

1. Visual responses and eye movement-related activities were studied in single neurons of the thalamic internal medullary lamina (IML) of alert cats. The animals faced a tangent screen on which stationary or moving spots of light were presented. Of 95 units, 26% discharged in relation to photic stimuli but not eye movement, 6% in relation to eye movement but not photic stimuli, and 68% in relation to both. These units were intermixed in the same region. 2. Visual responses varied from transient to sustained. IML units were not found particularly sensitive to stimulus movement when the eyes were fixed. Strong and consistent responses could be elicited by extremely dim and weakly contrasted stationary stimuli (e.g.) 3.4 mcd/m2, 2.6% of illumination background) binocularly viewed. Receptive fields (from 250 to 800 deg2) were determined, in absence of eye movements, by computing the position of effective stimuli relative to the point of fixation of the gaze. An area of greatest responsiveness in the receptive field of most units could be detected on the basis of either higher probability of response, minimum latency, greater number of spikes in initial transient burst, or stronger sustained activity. Whole fields or their areas of greatest responsiveness were located on the side toward which saccades were accompanied by increased firing of the unit. 3. On trials in which a delay occurred between stimulus presentation and the cat's targeting saccade, the majority of the units studied changed their activity twice: after the stimulus and before the eye movement. In 16 units, the presaccadic activation occurred only with targeting, not with spontaneous saccades. 4. These results suggest that cells in the IML region of the cat play a significant role in the control of visually elicited eye movements. The resemblance of these cells to the monkey's tectual cells is discussed and hypotheses are proposed a) to relate the receptive field characteristics to the targeting operation, and b) to account for the double activation--sensory and motor--of many IML cells.

Visual responses of pulvinar and collicular neurons during eye movements of awake, trained macaques

1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 485-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. L. Robinson ◽  
J. W. McClurkin ◽  
C. Kertzman ◽  
S. E. Petersen
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Stimulus Motion ◽  
Stimulus Movement ◽  
Pursuit Eye Movements ◽  
Extraretinal Signal ◽  
Wide Range

1. We recorded from single neurons in awake, trained rhesus monkeys in a lighted environment and compared responses to stimulus movement during periods of fixation with those to motion caused by saccadic or pursuit eye movements. Neurons in the inferior pulvinar (PI), lateral pulvinar (PL), and superior colliculus were tested. 2. Cells in PI and PL respond to stimulus movement over a wide range of speeds. Some of these cells do not respond to comparable stimulus motion, or discharge only weakly, when it is generated by saccadic or pursuit eye movements. Other neurons respond equivalently to both types of motion. Cells in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus have similar properties to those in PI and PL. 3. When tested in the dark to reduce visual stimulation from the background, cells in PI and PL still do not respond to motion generated by eye movements. Some of these cells have a suppression of activity after saccadic eye movements made in total darkness. These data suggest that an extraretinal signal suppresses responses to visual stimuli during eye movements. 4. The suppression of responses to stimuli during eye movements is not an absolute effect. Images brighter than 2.0 log units above background illumination evoke responses from cells in PI and PL. The suppression appears stronger in the superior colliculus than in PI and PL. 5. These experiments demonstrate that many cells in PI and PL have a suppression of their responses to stimuli that cross their receptive fields during eye movements. These cells are probably suppressed by an extraretinal signal. Comparable effects are present in the superficial layers of the superior colliculus. These properties in PI and PL may reflect the function of the ascending tectopulvinar system.

Use of an extraretinal signal by monkey superior colliculus neurons to distinguish real from self-induced stimulus movement

1976 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 852-870 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. L. Robinson ◽  
R. H. Wurtz
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Superior Colliculus ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Visual Stimulation ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Saccadic Eye Movement ◽  
Background Illumination ◽  
Stimulus Movement ◽  
Stationary Stimulus ◽  
Extraretinal Signal

1. In order to see whether cells in the superficial layers of the monkey superior colliculus can differentiate between real stimulus movement and self-induced stimulus movement we compared the discharge of these cells to stimulus movement in front of the stationary eye with stimulus movement generated by eye movements across a stationary stimulus. 2. Most of the cells recorded (65% of 231 cells) responded to stimulus velocities in front of the stationary eye as fast as those occurring during the peak velocity of a saccadic eye movement. Those cells that do respond usually have weak inhibitory regions and tend to have receptive fields further from fovea. 3. Move (61% of 105 cells) of the cells that did respond to rapid stimulus movement did not respond when an eye movement swept the receptive field over a stationary stimulus. 4. About half of these cells differentiated between these stimulus conditions when we used stimuli at least 1 log unit above background illumination; the remaining cells differentiated for stimuli 2 and 3 log units above background. Many cells differentiated between the two stimulus conditions over a wide range of directions of movement and the effect appears with about equal frequency in receptive fields at all distances from the fovea. 5. The differentiation is present for most cells even when the background illumination is reduced, indicating that visual factors are not the cause of the effect on these cells but may modify the response of other cells. 6. The suppression of background activity accompanying eye movements in the light is present following eye movements made in total darkness; the suppression, therefore, must result from an extraretinal signal. 4. The failure of these cells to respond to visual stimulation during eye movements is due to the same extraretinal signal that produces the suppression since a) the cells that show this suppression tend to be those that fail to respond to stimuli during eye movements, b) the time course of the suppression matches the time at which the effects of visual stimulation during an eye movement would reach the colliculus, and c) the cells which differentiate also show a decreased responsiveness to visual stimulation during the time of background suppression. While this extraretinal signal has the characteristics one would expect of a corollary discharge, proprioception as a source of the signal cannot be excluded. 8. Cells which differentiate between the two stimulus conditions usually also show an enhanced response to a visual stimulus in their receptive field when it is to be the target for a saccadic eye movement. These cells in the superior colliculus receive an extraretinal input which permits them to differentiate betweent real stimulus movements and stimulus movements resulting from the monkey's own eye movements. This differentiation would provide an uncontaminated visual movement signal and facilitate the detection of real movement in the environment...

scholarly journals Saliency-Based Gaze Visualization for Eye Movement Analysis

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (15) ◽  
pp. 5178
Author(s):  
Sangbong Yoo ◽  
Seongmin Jeong ◽  
Seokyeon Kim ◽  
Yun Jang
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Saliency Map ◽  
Gaze Behavior ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Movement Data ◽  
Visual Clues ◽  
Human Visual Attention

Gaze movement and visual stimuli have been utilized to analyze human visual attention intuitively. Gaze behavior studies mainly show statistical analyses of eye movements and human visual attention. During these analyses, eye movement data and the saliency map are presented to the analysts as separate views or merged views. However, the analysts become frustrated when they need to memorize all of the separate views or when the eye movements obscure the saliency map in the merged views. Therefore, it is not easy to analyze how visual stimuli affect gaze movements since existing techniques focus excessively on the eye movement data. In this paper, we propose a novel visualization technique for analyzing gaze behavior using saliency features as visual clues to express the visual attention of an observer. The visual clues that represent visual attention are analyzed to reveal which saliency features are prominent for the visual stimulus analysis. We visualize the gaze data with the saliency features to interpret the visual attention. We analyze the gaze behavior with the proposed visualization to evaluate that our approach to embedding saliency features within the visualization supports us to understand the visual attention of an observer.

Existence in the nucleus incertus of the cat of horizontal-eye-movement-related neurons projecting to the cerebellar flocculus

1995 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 1367-1372 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Cheron ◽  
S. Saussez ◽  
N. Gerrits ◽  
E. Godaux
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Retrograde Transport ◽  
Great Sensitivity ◽  
Antidromic Activation ◽  
Vertical Movements ◽  
Cerebellar Flocculus ◽  
Nucleus Incertus ◽  
Alert Cats ◽  
Eye Velocity

1. Properties of nucleus incertus (NIC) neurons projecting to the cerebellar flocculus were studied in alert cats by using chronic unit and eye movement recording and antidromic activation. Projection of these neurons onto the flocculus was verified with retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase after injections in the flocculus. 2. Bipolar stimulation electrodes were implanted into the "middle" zone of each flocculus because this zone is known to be involved in the control of horizontal eye movements. The dorsomedial aspect of the pontine tegmentum was explored with microelectrodes during stimulation of both flocculi. The majority of neurons antidromically activated from the flocculus were found in the caudal part of the NIC. 3. Of the 69 neurons activated from the flocculus, 44 were classified as burst-tonic (BT) neurons; 34 discharged in relation with horizontal movements of the eye, 10 in relation with vertical movements. Of the 14 remaining neurons, 6 were not related to eye movements and 8 were classified as burst neurons. The BT neurons of the NIC displayed a great sensitivity to both horizontal eye position and horizontal eye velocity. 4. This study demonstrates the presence of a new group of horizontal eye movement related BT neurons situated in the NIC. The fact that they project to the horizontal floccular zone emphasizes the importance of the functional specialization of the different Purkinje cell zones.

Eye Position Compensation Improves Estimates of Response Magnitude and Receptive Field Geometry in Alert Monkeys

2007 ◽  
Vol 97 (5) ◽  
pp. 3439-3448 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yamei Tang ◽  
Alan Saul ◽  
Moshe Gur ◽  
Stephanie Goei ◽  
Elsie Wong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Eye Position ◽  
Stimulus Position ◽  
Fixational Eye Movements ◽  
Field Geometry ◽  
Receptive Field Subregions ◽  
Movement Compensation ◽  
Definition Of

Studies of visual function in behaving subjects require that stimuli be positioned reliably on the retina in the presence of eye movements. Fixational eye movements scatter stimuli about the retina, inflating estimates of receptive field dimensions, reducing estimates of peak responses, and blurring maps of receptive field subregions. Scleral search coils are frequently used to measure eye position, but their utility for correcting the effects of fixational eye movements on receptive field maps has been questioned. Using eye coils sutured to the sclera and preamplifiers configured to minimize cable artifacts, we reexamined this issue in two rhesus monkeys. During repeated fixation trials, the eye position signal was used to adjust the stimulus position, compensating for eye movements and correcting the stimulus position to place it at the desired location on the retina. Estimates of response magnitudes and receptive field characteristics in V1 and in LGN were obtained in both compensated and uncompensated conditions. Receptive fields were narrower, with steeper borders, and response amplitudes were higher when eye movement compensation was used. In sum, compensating for eye movements facilitated more precise definition of the receptive field. We also monitored horizontal vergence over long sequences of fixation trials and found the variability to be low, as expected for this precise behavior. Our results imply that eye coil signals can be highly accurate and useful for optimizing visual physiology when rigorous precautions are observed.

scholarly journals Representation of the Ipsilateral Visual Field by Neurons in the Macaque Lateral Intraparietal Cortex Depends on the Forebrain Commissures

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (5) ◽  
pp. 2624-2633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine A. Dunn ◽  
Carol L. Colby
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Visual Fields ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Neural Mechanism ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Spatial Updating ◽  
Split Brain ◽  
Lateral Intraparietal Cortex

Our eyes are constantly moving, allowing us to attend to different visual objects in the environment. With each eye movement, a given object activates an entirely new set of visual neurons, yet we perceive a stable scene. One neural mechanism that may contribute to visual stability is remapping. Neurons in several brain regions respond to visual stimuli presented outside the receptive field when an eye movement brings the stimulated location into the receptive field. The stored representation of a visual stimulus is remapped, or updated, in conjunction with the saccade. Remapping depends on neurons being able to receive visual information from outside the classic receptive field. In previous studies, we asked whether remapping across hemifields depends on the forebrain commissures. We found that, when the forebrain commissures are transected, behavior dependent on accurate spatial updating is initially impaired but recovers over time. Moreover, neurons in lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) continue to remap information across hemifields in the absence of the forebrain commissures. One possible explanation for the preserved across-hemifield remapping in split-brain animals is that neurons in a single hemisphere could represent visual information from both visual fields. In the present study, we measured receptive fields of LIP neurons in split-brain monkeys and compared them with receptive fields in intact monkeys. We found a small number of neurons with bilateral receptive fields in the intact monkeys. In contrast, we found no such neurons in the split-brain animals. We conclude that bilateral representations in area LIP following forebrain commissures transection cannot account for remapping across hemifields.

Visuomotor functions of central thalamus in monkey. II. Unit activity related to visual events, targeting, and fixation

1984 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 1175-1195 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Schlag ◽  
M. Schlag-Rey
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Stimulus Onset ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Visual Events ◽  
Response Enhancement ◽  
Dim Light ◽  
Central Thalamus ◽  
Thalamic Region ◽  
Sustained Responses

In alert monkeys, single-unit responses to visual stimuli were recorded in the central thalamic region where eye movement-related activity has been observed (33). Usually, the stimuli were 1 degree annulus patterns of dim light presented at unpredictable locations on a tangent screen. The animals were trained on two tasks: one in which they delivered the stimulus themselves by pressing a panel that they had to release immediately when the stimulus shape changed to a square, and another one in which the stimulus was turned on by the experimenter and the monkeys were rewarded for fixating this target for a predetermined length of time. In both tasks, continuous stimulus fixation was required. Receptive fields were tested with and without a fixation point. Retinal coordinates of stimuli were obtained by subtracting eye-position coordinates from stimulus coordinates in space, the monkey's head being fixed. Unit responses in the cases where targeting occurred or did not occur were analyzed separately. Transient responses were observed in 63 units and sustained responses in 44 units. Among the 63 units responding transiently, 42 did so irrespective of targeting. Their receptive fields were very large, generally including the fovea, and predominantly contralateral when the fields were asymmetric. The responses of the other 21 units depended on the occurrence of targeting. They were called visually triggered eye movement-related responses (VTEM). VTEM units were further subdivided in 9 units active only with targeting and 12 units showing the classical phenomenon of "response enhancement" under this condition. VTEM units were contrasted to six units that were both passively visually responsive and bursting with saccades, either spontaneous or visually triggered. The latencies of passive visual and VTEM responses to stimulus onset were comprised between 77 and 135 ms in 80% of the units. VTEM units also fired prior to retargeting saccades. Presaccadic units active with spontaneous saccades also discharged with visually elicited saccades. The earliest sign of activation after stimulus onset eliciting a saccade appeared between 80 and 100 ms, that is, in the same range of latencies as passive visual and VTEM units. Sustained visual responses consisted of activation in 18 units and inactivation in 26 units. The occurrence of these patterns of firing was related to stimulus fixation. In the majority of cases, the changes in discharge frequency started before fixation was achieved by a targeting saccade. They terminated before fixation was broken by a saccade away from the stimulus.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Lateral geniculate neurons in behaving primates. I. Responses to two-dimensional stimuli

1991 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 777-793 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. W. McClurkin ◽  
T. J. Gawne ◽  
B. J. Richmond ◽  
L. M. Optican ◽  
D. L. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Receptive Field ◽  
Visual Information ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Nonlinear Behavior ◽  
Temporal Patterns ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Linear Summation ◽  
Lateral Geniculate ◽  
Opposite Contrast

1. Using behaving monkeys, we studied the visual responses of single neurons in the parvocellular layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) to a set of two-dimensional black and white patterns. We found that monkeys could be trained to make sufficiently reliable and stable fixations to enable us to plot and characterize the receptive fields of individual neurons. A qualitative examination of rasters and a statistical analysis of the data revealed that the responses of neurons were related to the stimuli. 2. The data from 5 of the 13 "X-like" neurons in our sample indicated the presence of antagonistic center and surround mechanisms and linear summation of luminance within center and surround mechanisms. We attribute the lack of evidence for surround antagonism in the eight neurons that failed to exhibit center-surround antagonism either to a mismatch between the size of the pixels in the stimuli and the size of the receptive field or to the lack of a surround mechanism (i.e., the type II neurons of Wiesel and Hubel). 3. The data from five other neurons confirm and extend previous reports indicating that the surround regions of X-like neurons can have nonlinearities. The responses of these neurons were not modulated when a contrast-reversing, bipartite stimulus was centered on the receptive field, which suggests a linear summation within the center and surround mechanisms. However, it was frequently the case for these neurons that stimuli of identical pattern but opposite contrast elicited responses of similar polarity, which indicates nonlinear behavior. 4. We found a wide variety of temporal patterns in the responses of individual LGN neurons, which included differences in the magnitude, width, and number of peaks of the initial on-transient and in the magnitude of the later sustained component. These different temporal patterns were repeatable and clearly different for different visual patterns. These results suggest that visual information may be carried in the shape as well as in the amplitude of the response waveform.

Corticogeniculate neurons, corticotectal neurons, and suspected interneurons in visual cortex of awake rabbits: receptive-field properties, axonal properties, and effects of EEG arousal

1987 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 977-1001 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. A. Swadlow ◽  
T. G. Weyand
Keyword(s):  
Electrical Stimulation ◽  
Visual Cortex ◽  
Receptive Field ◽  
Receptive Fields ◽  
Spontaneous Firing ◽  
Visual Responses ◽  
Firing Rates ◽  
Axonal Conduction ◽  
Conduction Velocities ◽  
Stimulation Of

The intrinsic stability of the rabbit eye was exploited to enable receptive-field analysis of antidromically identified corticotectal (CT) neurons (n = 101) and corticogeniculate (CG) neurons (n = 124) in visual area I of awake rabbits. Eye position was monitored to within 1/5 degrees. We also studied the receptive-field properties of neurons synaptically activated via electrical stimulation of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (LGNd). Whereas most CT neurons had either complex (59%) or motion/uniform (15%) receptive fields, we also found CT neurons with simple (9%) and concentric (4%) receptive fields. Most complex CT cells were broadly tuned to both stimulus orientation and velocity, but only 41% of these cells were directionally selective. We could elicit no visual responses from 6% of CT cells, and these cells had significantly lower conduction velocities than visually responsive CT cells. The median spontaneous firing rates for all classes of CT neurons were 4-8 spikes/s. CG neurons had primarily simple (60%) and concentric (9%) receptive fields, and none of these cells had complex receptive fields. CG simple cells were more narrowly tuned to both stimulus orientation and velocity than were complex CT cells, and most (85%) were directionally selective. Axonal conduction velocities of CG neurons (mean = 1.2 m/s) were much lower than those of CT neurons (mean = 6.4 m/s), and CG neurons that were visually unresponsive (23%) had lower axonal conduction velocities than did visually responsive CG neurons. Some visually unresponsive CG neurons (14%) responded with saccadic eye movements. The median spontaneous firing rates for all classes of CG neurons were less than 1 spike/s. All neurons synaptically activated via LGNd stimulation at latencies of less than 2.0 ms had receptive fields that were not orientation selective (89% motion/uniform, 11% concentric), whereas most cells with orientation-selective receptive fields had considerably longer synaptic latencies. Most short-latency motion/uniform neurons responded to electrical stimulation of the LGNd (and visual area II) with a high-frequency burst (500-900 Hz) of three or more spikes. Action potentials of these neurons were of short duration, thresholds of synaptic activation were low, and spontaneous firing rates were the highest seen in rabbit visual cortex. These properties are similar to those reported for interneurons in several regions in mammalian central nervous system. Nonvisual sensory stimuli that resulted in electroencephalographic arousal (hippocampal theta activity) had a profound effect on the visual responses of many visual cortical neurons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

scholarly journals Using the Blind Spot to Investigate Trans-Saccadic Perception

Vision ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 39
Author(s):  
Julie Royo ◽  
Fabrice Arcizet ◽  
Patrick Cavanagh ◽  
Pierre Pouget
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movements ◽  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Tracking System ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Gaze Position

We introduce a blind spot method to create image changes contingent on eye movements. One challenge of eye movement research is triggering display changes contingent on gaze. The eye-tracking system must capture the image of the eye, discover and track the pupil and corneal reflections to estimate the gaze position, and then transfer this data to the computer that updates the display. All of these steps introduce delays that are often difficult to predict. To avoid these issues, we describe a simple blind spot method to generate gaze contingent display manipulations without any eye-tracking system and/or display controls.

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