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Eye positions in fishes suggest different modes of interaction between commands and reflexes

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Summary

  1. 1.

    By videorecordings we studied ocular counterroll in fishes during actively and passively induced postures.

  2. 2.

    During active body roll in response to the presence of obstacles, during Ventral Substrate Response (VSR) induced pitch-up, and during active pitchdown in a “head-standing” fish ocular counterroll occurs with the same gain as when the same posture is induced passively.

  3. 3.

    During VSR induced roll and under certain conditions also during Dorsal Light Response (DLR) induced roll ocular counterroll is absent.

  4. 4.

    During tail bending in the horizontal plane ocular counterrotation is more distinct during active movements than during passive ones.

  5. 5.

    During certain cases of DLR induced roll as well as during DLR induced pitch-up and pitch-down ocular counterroll is present, but less pronounced than during passively enforced abnormal postures.

  6. 6.

    We interpret the different types of oculomotor behavior during active changes of body posture as indicating that there are different modes of interaction between postural change commands initiated by higher CNS centers and vestibular circuits which are thereby set-point changed.

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Abbreviations

DLR:

dorsal light response

VSR:

ventral substrate response

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Histology and Neuroanatomy, University of Göttingen, D-3400, Göttingen, Federal Republic of Germany

    W. Graf & D. L. Meyer

  2. Department of Neurosciences, Neurobiology Unit, University of California, San Diego, California, USA

    W. Graf & D. L. Meyer

Authors
  1. W. Graf
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  2. D. L. Meyer
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Additional information

Supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (ME 526/6) and NSF, NIH and NASA grants to Dr. T. H. Bullock

We wish to thank Prof. T.H. Bullock and Prof. P. Glees for critically reading the manuscript.

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Graf, W., Meyer, D.L. Eye positions in fishes suggest different modes of interaction between commands and reflexes. J. Comp. Physiol. 128, 241–250 (1978). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00656857

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00656857

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