A. Bergeron et D. Guitton, Fixation neurons in the superior colliculus encode distance between current and desired gaze positions, NAT NEUROSC, 3(9), 2000, pp. 932-939
A visual scene is scrutinized during sequential periods of steady fixation,
connected by saccades that shift the visual axis (gaze) to new positions.
During such exploratory scan paths, gaze frequently strays from and then re
turns to salient features. How the brain keeps track of major end-gears and
intermediate subgoals is not understood. We studied the discharge of fixat
ion neurons of the brainstem's superior colliculus during multiple-step gaz
e shifts composed of a sequence of saccades made in the dark and separated
by short periods of steady fixation. Cells were initially silent. As sequen
tial gaze saccades approached the goal, firing began; its frequency increas
ed progressively and peaked when gaze was on the remembered target location
. We conclude that these fixation neurons encode the error between desired
and actual gaze positions, irrespective of trajectory characteristics.