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Neural activation associated with corrective saccades during tasks with fixation, pursuit and saccades

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Abstract

Corrective saccades are small eye movements that redirect gaze whenever the actual eye position differs from the desired eye position. In contrast to various forms of saccades including pro-saccades, recentering-saccades or memory guided saccades, corrective saccades have been widely neglected so far. The fMRI correlates of corrective saccades were studied that spontaneously occurred during fixation, pursuit or saccadic tasks. Eyetracking was performed during the fMRI data acquisition with a fiber-optic device. Using a combined block and event-related design, we isolated the cortical activations associated with visually guided fixation, pursuit or saccadic tasks and compared these to the activation associated with the occurrence of corrective saccades. Neuronal activations in anterior inferior cingulate, bilateral middle and inferior frontal gyri, bilateral insula and cerebellum are most likely specifically associated with corrective saccades. Additionally, overlapping activations with the established pro-saccade and, to a lesser extent, pursuit network were present. The presented results imply that corrective saccades represent a potential systematic confound in eye-movement studies, in particular because the frequency of spontaneously occurring corrective saccades significantly differed between fixation, pursuit and pro-saccades.

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Abbreviations

ACG:

Anterior cingulate cortex

BOLD:

Blood oxygenation level dependent

CEF:

Cingulate eye field

DLPFC:

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex

FEF:

Frontal eye fields

fMRI:

Functional magnetic resonance imaging

PEF:

Parietal eye fields

PCG:

Posterior cingulate cortex

SEF:

Supplementary eye field

S:

Experimental condition pro-saccades

P:

Experimental condition pursuit eye movement

CS:

Corrective saccades during pro-saccades

CP:

Corrective saccades during pursuit eye movement

CF:

Corrective saccades during fixation

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Radiology, Department of Neuroradiology, University Hospital Basel, CH 4031, Basel, Switzerland

    Sven Haller, David Fasler & Ernst W. Radue

  2. Institute of Radiology, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital Basel, CH 4031, Basel, Switzerland

    Sven Haller

  3. Department of Neurology, University Hospital Freiburg, 79106, Freiburg, Germany

    Sabine Ohlendorf

  4. Institute for Experimental Psychology, University of Regensburg, 93053, Regensburg, Germany

    Mark W. Greenlee

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  1. Sven Haller
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  2. David Fasler
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  3. Sabine Ohlendorf
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  4. Ernst W. Radue
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  5. Mark W. Greenlee
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Correspondence to Sven Haller.

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Haller, S., Fasler, D., Ohlendorf, S. et al. Neural activation associated with corrective saccades during tasks with fixation, pursuit and saccades. Exp Brain Res 184, 83–94 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1077-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-007-1077-y

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