Visual Sensitivity of Frontal Eye Field Neurons During the Preparation of Saccadic Eye Movements R Krock, T Moore |
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Neurobiology Department, Stanford University, CA, United States
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| Saccadic suppression is a well-characterized psychophysical phenomenon in which visual sensitivity decreases profoundly just before and during saccades. It is thought to play a role in minimizing the perception of self-generated motion signals. The visual responses of neurons before and during saccades have been investigated at numerous stages of the primate visual system, but a clear neural correlate of saccadic suppression remains elusive. We measured the visual sensitivity of neurons in the frontal eye field (FEF), a visuomotor area that is causally involved in generating saccadic eye movements, during the preparation of saccades. We functionally characterized neurons as having visual, visuomovement, or movement activity using a memory-guided saccade task. For cells with visual or visuomovement activity, we recorded visual responses to brief (8ms) visual probes consisting of full-field, 0.1 cycles/degree sinusoidal gratings ranging from 2% to 32% Michaelson contrast. We compared the contrast sensitivity of neurons to probes presented long (>100ms) or immediately (<100ms) before saccades. Our results suggest how the representation of visual stimuli in the FEF might account for the changes in visual sensitivity that precede saccades. |
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