Frontal eye field lesions impair predictive and visually-guided pursuit eye movements

Summary

The study initially explored the frontal eye field's (FEF) control of predictive eye movements, i.e., eye movements driven by previous rather than current sensory signals. Five monkeys were trained to pursue horizontal target motion, including sinusoidal targets and “random-walk” targets which sometimes deviated from a sine motion. Some subjects also tracked other target trajectories and optokinetic motion. FEF ablations or cold lesions impaired predictive pursuit, but also degraded visually guided foveal pursuit of all targets. Unilateral lesions impaired pursuit of targets moving in both horizontal orbital fields and in both directions of movement. Saccadic estimates of target motion were generally accurate. The slow-phase velocity of optokinetic pursuit (collected after 54 s of OKN) also appeared normal. Pursuit recovered over 1–3 weeks after surgery but the deficits were then reinstated by removal of FEF in the other hemisphere. Thereafter, a slight deficit persisted for up to 10 weeks of observation in two subjects. The pattern of symptoms suggests that FEF lies subsequent to parietal area MST and prior to the pontine nuclei in controlling pursuit eye movements.