scholarly journals Role of Primate Cerebellar Hemisphere in Voluntary Eye Movement Control Revealed by Lesion Effects

2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 934-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
Masafumi Ohki ◽  
Hiromasa Kitazawa ◽  
Takahito Hiramatsu ◽  
Kimitake Kaga ◽  
Taiko Kitamura ◽  
...  

The anatomical connection between the frontal eye field and the cerebellar hemispheric lobule VII (H-VII) suggests a potential role of the hemisphere in voluntary eye movement control. To reveal the involvement of the hemisphere in smooth pursuit and saccade control, we made a unilateral lesion around H-VII and examined its effects in three Macaca fuscata that were trained to pursue visually a small target. To the step (3°)-ramp (5–20°/s) target motion, the monkeys usually showed an initial pursuit eye movement at a latency of 80–140 ms and a small catch-up saccade at 140–220 ms that was followed by a postsaccadic pursuit eye movement that roughly matched the ramp target velocity. After unilateral cerebellar hemispheric lesioning, the initial pursuit eye movements were impaired, and the velocities of the postsaccadic pursuit eye movements decreased. The onsets of 5° visually guided saccades to the stationary target were delayed, and their amplitudes showed a tendency of increased trial-to-trial variability but never became hypo- or hypermetric. Similar tendencies were observed in the onsets and amplitudes of catch-up saccades. The adaptation of open-loop smooth pursuit velocity, tested by a step increase in target velocity for a brief period, was impaired. These lesion effects were recognized in all directions, particularly in the ipsiversive direction. A recovery was observed at 4 wk postlesion for some of these lesion effects. These results suggest that the cerebellar hemispheric region around lobule VII is involved in the control of smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements.

2008 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 934-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Ohki ◽  
H. Kitazawa ◽  
T. Hiramatsu ◽  
K. Kaga ◽  
T. Kitamura ◽  
...  

2008 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahito Hiramatsu ◽  
Masafumi Ohki ◽  
Hiromasa Kitazawa ◽  
Guoxiang Xiong ◽  
Taiko Kitamura ◽  
...  

2001 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 550-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie de Brouwer ◽  
Marcus Missal ◽  
Philippe Lefèvre

Visual tracking of moving targets requires the combination of smooth pursuit eye movements with catch-up saccades. In primates, catch-up saccades usually take place only during pursuit initiation because pursuit gain is close to unity. This contrasts with the lower and more variable gain of smooth pursuit in cats, where smooth eye movements are intermingled with catch-up saccades during steady-state pursuit. In this paper, we studied in detail the role of retinal slip in the prediction of target motion during smooth and saccadic pursuit in the cat. We found that the typical pattern of pursuit in the cat was a combination of smooth eye movements with saccades. During smooth pursuit initiation, there was a correlation between peak eye acceleration and target velocity. During pursuit maintenance, eye velocity oscillated at ∼3 Hz around a steady-state value. The average gain of smooth pursuit was ∼0.5. Trained cats were able to continue pursuing in the absence of a visible target, suggesting a role of the prediction of future target motion in this species. The analysis of catch-up saccades showed that the smooth-pursuit motor command is added to the saccadic command during catch-up saccades and that both position error and retinal slip are taken into account in their programming. The influence of retinal slip on catch-up saccades showed that prediction about future target motion is used in the programming of catch-up saccades. Altogether, these results suggest that pursuit systems in primates and cats are qualitatively similar, with a lower average gain in the cat and that prediction affects both saccades and smooth eye movements during pursuit.


2012 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1012-1018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Helmchen ◽  
Jonas Pohlmann ◽  
Peter Trillenberg ◽  
Rebekka Lencer ◽  
Julia Graf ◽  
...  

2014 ◽  
Vol 112 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yoshiko Izawa ◽  
Hisao Suzuki

We recorded the activity of fixation neurons in the frontal eye field (FEF) in trained monkeys and analyzed their activity during smooth pursuit eye movements. Fixation neurons were densely located in the area of the FEF in the caudal part of the arcuate gyrus facing the inferior arcuate sulcus where focal electrical stimulation suppressed the generation of saccades and smooth pursuit in bilateral directions at an intensity lower than the threshold for eliciting electrically evoked saccades. Whereas fixation neurons discharged tonically during fixation, they showed a variety of discharge patterns during smooth pursuit, ranging from a decrease in activity to an increase in activity. Of these, more than two-thirds were found to show a reduction in activity during smooth pursuit in the ipsilateral and bilateral directions. The reduction in activity of fixation neurons began at pursuit initiation and continued during pursuit maintenance. When catch-up saccades during the initiation of pursuit were eliminated by a step-ramp target routine, the reduced activity of fixation neurons remained. The reduction in activity during pursuit was not dependent on the activity during fixation without a target. Based on these results, we discuss the role of the FEF at maintaining fixation in relation to various other brain areas. We suggest that fixation neurons in the FEF contribute to the suppression of smooth pursuit. These results suggest that FEF fixation neurons are part of a more generalized visual fixation system through which suppressive control is exerted on smooth pursuit, as well as saccades.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Rayner

Models of eye movement control in reading and their impact on the field are discussed. Differences between the E-Z Reader model and the SWIFT model are reviewed, as are benchmark data that need to be accounted for by any model of eye movement control. Predictions made by the models and how models can sometimes account for counterintuitive findings are also discussed. Finally, the role of models and data in further understanding the reading process is considered.


2013 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 732-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Scott Murdison ◽  
Chanel A. Paré-Bingley ◽  
Gunnar Blohm

To compute spatially correct smooth pursuit eye movements, the brain uses both retinal motion and extraretinal signals about the eyes and head in space ( Blohm and Lefèvre 2010 ). However, when smooth eye movements rely solely on memorized target velocity, such as during anticipatory pursuit, it is unknown if this velocity memory also accounts for extraretinal information, such as head roll and ocular torsion. To answer this question, we used a novel behavioral updating paradigm in which participants pursued a repetitive, spatially constant fixation-gap-ramp stimulus in series of five trials. During the first four trials, participants' heads were rolled toward one shoulder, inducing ocular counterroll (OCR). With each repetition, participants increased their anticipatory pursuit gain, indicating a robust encoding of velocity memory. On the fifth trial, they rolled their heads to the opposite shoulder before pursuit, also inducing changes in ocular torsion. Consequently, for spatially accurate anticipatory pursuit, the velocity memory had to be updated across changes in head roll and ocular torsion. We tested how the velocity memory accounted for head roll and OCR by observing the effects of changes to these signals on anticipatory trajectories of the memory decoding (fifth) trials. We found that anticipatory pursuit was updated for changes in head roll; however, we observed no evidence of compensation for OCR, representing the absence of ocular torsion signals within the velocity memory. This indicated that the directional component of the memory must be coded retinally and updated to account for changes in head roll, but not OCR.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document