The effects of pursuit eye movements on single unit activity in cat visual cortex

Abstract

The pursuit eye movements were assumed to be an indicator of the time periods when visual information is actively processed. The experiment was performed on cats with pretrigeminal transection of the brain stem. In such preparations only vertical eye movements were preserved. Under these conditions the following eye movements could be evoked by vertical movements of the stimulus at the periphery of the retina. The influence of these movements on the activity of units which had their receptive fields in area centralis was tested. Contralateral eye was immobilized and the position and preferred direction of the units' receptive fields was tested. Significant differences in neuron activity correlated with the pursuit eye movement were found in 22 percent of cells. It is suggested that the effect is due rather to the active state of visual system than to the peripheral stimulation of retina or the information incoming from extraocular muscles.