SHARED MOTOR ERROR FOR MULTIPLE EYE-MOVEMENTS

Most natural actions are accomplished with a seamless combination of i ndividual movements, Such coordination poses a problem: How does the m otor system orchestrate multiple movements to produce a single goal-di rected action? The results from current experiments suggest one possib le solution. Oculomotor neurons in the superior colliculus of a primat e responded to mismatches between eye and target positions, even when the animal made two different types of eye movements. This neuronal ac tivity therefore does not appear to convey a command for a specific ty pe of eye movement but instead encodes an error signal that could be u sed by multiple movements, The use of shared inputs is one possible st rategy for ensuring that different movements share a common goal.