We have continued our study of the visuomotor processing in the brain for the generation of smooth pursuit and saccadic eye movements. In the study of smooth pursuit eye movements, we concentrated on an area of cerebral cortex devoted to the analysis of visual motion, MST. We found that by stimulating this area during pursuit, we produced an acceleration towards the side of the brain being stimulated. Added to our previous observations, these experiments have localized the brain region related to the maintenance of pursuit eye movements. We also determined that recovery of pursuit following damage to these areas was minimally affected by visual experience during the recovery period. In the study of saccadic eye movements, we identified a type of neuronal discharge in the superior colliculus that indicated that some cells in this structural receive information about how far the eye has moved during a saccade. This led to a reformulation of the role of the superior colliculus in the generation of saccadic eye movements, and a new model of saccadic control.
| Berman, Rebecca A; Joiner, Wilsaan M; Cavanaugh, James et al. (2009) Modulation of presaccadic activity in the frontal eye field by the superior colliculus. J Neurophysiol 101:2934-42 |
| Sommer, Marc A; Wurtz, Robert H (2008) Brain circuits for the internal monitoring of movements. Annu Rev Neurosci 31:317-38 |
| Sommer, Marc A; Wurtz, Robert H (2008) Visual perception and corollary discharge. Perception 37:408-18 |
| Wurtz, Robert H (2008) Neuronal mechanisms of visual stability. Vision Res 48:2070-89 |
| McAlonan, Kerry; Cavanaugh, James; Wurtz, Robert H (2008) Guarding the gateway to cortex with attention in visual thalamus. Nature 456:391-4 |
| Sommer, Marc A; Wurtz, Robert H (2006) Influence of the thalamus on spatial visual processing in frontal cortex. Nature 444:374-7 |
| Nakahara, Hiroyuki; Morita, Kenji; Wurtz, Robert H et al. (2006) Saccade-related spread of activity across superior colliculus may arise from asymmetry of internal connections. J Neurophysiol 96:765-74 |
| Cavanaugh, James; Alvarez, Bryan D; Wurtz, Robert H (2006) Enhanced performance with brain stimulation: attentional shift or visual cue? J Neurosci 26:11347-58 |
| McAlonan, Kerry; Cavanaugh, James; Wurtz, Robert H (2006) Attentional modulation of thalamic reticular neurons. J Neurosci 26:4444-50 |
| Hanes, Doug P; Smith, Mitchell K; Optican, Lance M et al. (2005) Recovery of saccadic dysmetria following localized lesions in monkey superior colliculus. Exp Brain Res 160:312-25 |
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