A pathway in primate brain for internal monitoring of movements

It is essential to keep track of the movements we make, and one way to do that is to monitor correlates, or corollary discharges, of neuronal movement commands. We hypothesized that a previously identified pathway from brainstem to frontal cortex might carry corollary discharge signals. We found that neuronal activity in this pathway encodes upcoming eye movements and that inactivating the pathway impairs sequential eye movements consistent with loss of corollary discharge without affecting single eye movements. These results identify a pathway in the brain of the primate Macaca mulatta that conveys corollary discharge signals.     

Alpha and kappa electroencephalogram activity in eyeless subjects

Several reports have cast doubt on the cerebral origin of alpha and kappa electroencephalogram activity by charging that they are artifacts related to eye activity. Data are cited which eliminate the corneoretinal potential of the eyeball, tremor of the extraocular muscles, eye position, accommodation, and eye flutter as sources of alpha and kappa electroencephalogram activity. A subject with both eyes removed showed normal alpha and kappa electroencephalogram activity. Marked left-right differences in alpha activity were not found in one-eyed subjects whose eyes and extraocular muscles were completely removed on one side.     

Gating of retinal transmission by afferent eye position and movement signals

Vision in most vertebrates is an active process that requires the brain to combine retinal signals with information about eye movement. Eye movement information may feed forward from the motor control areas of the brain or feed back from the extrinsic eye muscles. Feedback signals elicited by passive eye movement selectively gate retinal outflow at the first relay, the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus. The gating predominantly facilitates retinogeniculate transmission immediately after eye movement and inhibits transmission when a new steady-state eye position is achieved. These two gating effects are distributed in a complementary fashion across the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus such that the spatiotemporal activity profile could contribute to object detection and localization.     

Human CHN1 mutations hyperactivate alpha2-chimaerin and cause Duane's retraction syndrome

Duane's retraction syndrome (DRS) is a complex congenital eye movement disorder caused by aberrant innervation of the extraocular muscles by axons of brainstem motor neurons. Studying families with a variant form of the disorder (DURS2-DRS), we have identified causative heterozygous missense mutations in CHN1, a gene on chromosome 2q31 that encodes alpha2-chimaerin, a Rac guanosine triphosphatase-activating protein (RacGAP) signaling protein previously implicated in the pathfinding of corticospinal axons in mice. We found that these are gain-of-function mutations that increase alpha2-chimaerin RacGAP activity in vitro. Several of the mutations appeared to enhance alpha2-chimaerin translocation to the cell membrane or enhance its ability to self-associate. Expression of mutant alpha2-chimaerin constructs in chick embryos resulted in failure of oculomotor axons to innervate their target extraocular muscles. We conclude that alpha2-chimaerin has a critical developmental function in ocular motor axon pathfinding.     

The cellular basis of a corollary discharge

How do animals discriminate self-generated from external stimuli during behavior and prevent desensitization of their sensory pathways? A fundamental concept in neuroscience states that neural signals, termed corollary discharges or efference copies, are forwarded from motor to sensory areas. Neurons mediating these signals have proved difficult to identify. We show that a single, multisegmental interneuron is responsible for the pre- and postsynaptic inhibition of auditory neurons in singing crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus). Therefore, this neuron represents a corollary discharge interneuron that provides a neuronal basis for the central control of sensory responses.     

Discharge of frontal eye field neurons during eye movements in unanesthetized monkeys

Single unit activity was recorded from the frontal eye fields (area 8) in unanesthetized monkeys seated in a primate chair with the head restrained. The frontal eye field units were identified by antidromic response to stimulation of the cerebral peduncle. The findings indicate that most of the neurons discharge only after initiation of eye movements. These cells showed steady discharge when the eyes were immobile and oriented in a specific direction.     

Generation of torsional and vertical eye position signals by the interstitial nucleus of Cajal

The neural integrator, which converts eye velocity signals into position signals, is central to oculomotor theory. Similar integrators are probably necessary in any neural system that changes and maintains muscular tension. The integrator for horizontal eye position is in the pons, but the locations of the vertical and torsional integrators have not been clearly defined. Recording three-dimensional eye movements in alert monkeys during microstimulation and pharmacological inactivation of midbrain sites showed that the interstitial nucleus of Cajal generates both the torsional and vertical eye position signals. Up and down signals are linked with clockwise signals in the right brain and counterclockwise signals in the left brain. This three-dimensional coordinate system achieves orthogonality and bilateral symmetry without redundancy and optimizes energy efficiency for horizontal visual scanning.     

Superior colliculus cell responses related to eye movements in awake monkeys

Single cell responses were recorded from the superior colliculus of awake monkeys trained to move their eyes. A class of cells that discharged before eye movements was found in the intermediate and deep layers of the colliculus. The response of the cells was most vigorous before saccadic eye movements within a particular range of directions. These cells had no visual receptive fields, and visually guided eye movements were not necessary for their discharge, since they responded in total darkness before spontaneous eye movements and vestibular nystagmus.     

Limulus lateral eye: properties of receptor units in the unexcised eye

Single receptor units in the compound eye of the horseshoe crab were illuminated, and their impulse discharges were recorded without removing the eye from the animal. The receptors were spontaneously active in darkness and responded without saturation over a light intensity range of 10(10) to 1. When the eye was excised, the receptors did not discharge in darkness and had an intensity range of 10(5) to 1, as is usually found. Experiments show that these and other differences result from cutting off the blood supply to the eye when it is excised. In addition, the range and shape of the intensity characteristic suggest that more than one receptor mechanism encodes light intensity in this eye.     

Enhancement of flicker by lateral inhibition

Sinusoidal modulation of illumination on the compound eye of the horseshoe crab, Limulus, produces a corresponding variation in the rate of discharge of optic nerve impulses. Increasing the area of illumination decreases the variation at low frequencies of modulation, but unexpectedly enhances-or "amplifies"-the variation at the intermediate frequencies to which the eye is most sensitive. Both effects must result from inhibition since it is the only significant lateral influence in this eye.     

Photoelectric technique for measuring eye movements

By the system described, the movement of a stimulus and the correlated tracking movements of the eye are recorded simultaneously. The technique for measuring the eye movements consists of detecting and amplifying by photomultiplication the total amount of light passing through a small slit upon which is imaged a small portion of the light-dark field represented by the iris and sclera of the eye. This total amount of light varies directly with the angular position of the eye.     

Relating a component of physiological nystagmus to visual display

A transactional position suggests the hypothesis that there should be changes in the fine eye movements of a fixating subject if the fixated visual display is altered. It is shown that the mean saccadic eye movements are unequivocally different with different positions of the stimulus within the visual field.     

Eye-head coordination in monkeys: evidence for centrally patterned organization

Eye-head coordination was investigated by recording from the neck and eye muscles in monkeys. The results show that (i) during eye-head turning, neural activity reaches the neck muscles before the eye muscles, and (ii) all agonist neck muscles are activated simultaneously regardless of the initial head position. Since overt movement of the eyes precedes that of the head, it was concluded that the central neural command initiates the eye-head sequence but does not specify its serial order. Furthermore, it was determined that the compensatory eye movement is not initiated centrally but instead is dependent upon reflex activation arising from movement of the head.     

Optics of arthropod compound eye

The extent to which light can escape from one ommatidium into its neighbors in the compound eye has been examined by recording from single receptors during stimulation of single facets. In the "apposition" eye of the drone honeybee and locust, optical interaction is extremely small. In the "superposition" eye of the crayfish, more than half the light captured by the average cell gets in through neighboring facets, even when screening pigments are in the fully lightadapted position.     

Distortions of apparent velocity: a new optical illusion

To an observer whose one eye is covered with a relatively strong filter (approximately 90 percent extinction) and who views a landscape from the side window of a moving automobile, the velocity of the vehicle appears to be markedly reduced when the uncovered eye is in the forward or leading position (in the sense of motion of the vehicle); the velocity seems to be increased when the covered eye is in the leading position. The illusion of reduced velocity is accompanied by an apparent dwarfing of objects near the roadside and an apparent foreshortening of the distance between object and observer; the illusion of increased velocity is accompanied by an apparent increase in size of objects and an increase in their apparent distance. These illusions can be understood as corollaries of the well-known Pulfrich phenomenon.     

Midbrain control of three-dimensional head orientation

Little is known about the neural mechanisms controlling head posture and why they fail in clinical syndromes like torticollis. It is well established, however, that the brain controls eye position by integrating eye velocity commands. By electrically stimulating and reversibly inactivating midbrain sites in the head-free (nonimmobilized) monkey, we found that the interstitial nucleus of Cajal functions as a neural integrator for head posture. We suggest that a bilateral imbalance in this structure, through either direct damage or inappropriate input, could be one of the mechanisms underlying torticollis.     

Encoding of spatial location by posterior parietal neurons

The cortex of the inferior parietal lobule in primates is important for spatial perception and spatially oriented behavior. Recordings of single neurons in this area in behaving monkeys showed that the visual sensitivity of the retinotopic receptive fields changes systematically with the angle of gaze. The activity of many of the neurons can be largely described by the product of a gain factor that is a function of the eye position and the response profile of the visual receptive field. This operation produces an eye position-dependent tuning for locations in head-centered coordinate space.     

Visual cortex neurons: response to stimuli during rapid eye movements

While awake, unanesthetized monkeys held their eyes stationary, a motionless or slowly moving stimulus falling on the receptive field of striate cortex neurons produced an excitatory response. When a rapid eye movement was made across the same stimulus, many of these neurons continued to give an excitatory response. But the discharge of other neurons was unchanged or was suppressed during the eye movement.     

CONTOUR INTERACTION AND VISUAL RESOLUTION: CONTRALATERAL EFFECTS

Detection of the gap in a four-position Landolt C presented to one eye is impaired by critically spaced surrounding bars seen only by the other eye. The intensity and spatial extent of this contralateral contour interaction match those obtained ipsilaterally. These results indicate that the neural site for this loss of visual information is supraretinal.     

鱼类眼睛晶体信息分析与应用研究进展

眼睛晶体作为鱼类的硬组织之一,具有结构稳定、耐腐蚀、易获取的特性,其含有大量的蛋白质,蕴含着丰富的化学信息,并在鱼类的年龄鉴定中得到了一定程度的应用。近年来,随着生物地球化学技术的不断创新与进步,鱼类眼睛晶体的微量元素、稳定同位素信息也越来越受到国内外学者的重视。本文将依据国内外学者的研究成果,从眼睛晶体的直径与重量、微结构、微量元素和稳定同位素等方面,对鱼类的年龄鉴定、栖息环境重建、摄食生态的追踪等方面的应用进行综述,并通过分析鱼类眼睛晶体的组成成分与生长模式,比较眼睛晶体与其他组织做稳定同位素分析的优势,着重归纳总结了眼睛晶体碳氮稳定同位素在鱼类生活史信息,尤其在摄食生态、栖息环境重建等方面的研究方法、应用现状及发展前景,为以后开展相关的研究提供参考。