An area for vergence eye movement in primate frontal cortex

Paul D. Gamlin () and Kyunghee Yoon
Additional contact information
Paul D. Gamlin: Vision Science Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Kyunghee Yoon: Vision Science Research Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham

Nature, 2000, vol. 407, issue 6807, 1003-1007

Abstract: Abstract To view objects at different distances, humans rely on vergence eye movements to appropriately converge or diverge the eyes and on ocular accommodation to focus the object1,2. Despite the importance of these coordinated eye movements (the ‘near response’) very little is known about the role of the cerebral cortex in their control. As near-response neurons exist within the nucleus reticularis tegmenti pontis3, which receives input from the frontal eye field region of frontal cortex4,5,6, and this cortical region is known to be involved in saccadic7,8,9 and smooth-pursuit eye movements10,11,12, we propose that a nearby region might play a role in vergence and ocular accommodation. Here we provide evidence from rhesus monkeys that a region of frontal cortex located immediately anterior to the saccade-related frontal eye field region is involved in vergence and ocular accommodation, and in the sensorimotor transformations required for these eye movements. We conclude that the macaque frontal cortex is involved in the control of all voluntary eye movements, and suggest that the definition of the frontal eye fields should be expanded to include this region.

Date: 2000
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/35039506 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:407:y:2000:i:6807:d:10.1038_35039506

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/35039506

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().