Three-dimensional organization of vestibular related eye movements to rotational motion in pigeons

During rotational motions, compensatory eye movement adjustments must conti nually occur in order to maintain objects of visual interest as stable imag es on the retina. In the present study, the three-dimensional organization of the vestibule-ocular reflex in pigeons was quantitatively examined. Rota tions about different head axes produced horizontal, vertical, and torsiona l eye movements, whose component magnitude was dependent upon the cosine of the stimulus axis relative to the animal's visual axis. Thus, the three-di mensional organization of the VOR in pigeons appears to be compensatory for any direction of head rotation. Frequency responses of the horizontal, ver tical, and torsional slow phase components exhibited high pass filter prope rties with dominant time constants of approximately 3 s. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.