Cortical activity predicting correct or error saccades

Case Study "Neurosciences"

Early event-related cortical activity originating in the frontal eye fields and inferior parietal lobe predicts the occurrence of correct and error saccades
-      A study conducted by University of Geneva and Geneva University Hospital (CH) with SMI Hi-Speed eye tracking and EEG data acquisition

<- Overview Case Studies

This study examined electrophysiological activity preceding the onset of correct (i.e., voluntary) or error (i.e., reflexive) saccades in an oculomotor capture task. Participants executed saccades to lateralized visual targets while attempting to inhibit reflexive glances to abruptly appearing distracters.

Though reflexive saccades had significantly shorter latency than voluntary saccades a prolonged topographic configuration of electric potentials prior to error saccades was found ~120-140 ms following target onset. In addition, while reflexive saccades were associated with stronger activity in the right Frontal Eye Field, voluntary saccades were preceded by stronger activity in the inferior parietal lobule.

These findings suggest that selection of the saccade target in a conflicting situation is determined by early top-down biases originating in frontal and parietal cortical regions critical for spatial attention and saccade programming.

 

Get more information.