Optokinetic reactions in man elicited by localized retinal motion stimuli

doi:10.1016/0042-6989(79)90005-1

Vision Research

Volume 19, Issue 10, 1979, Pages 1105-1115

https://doi.org/10.1016/0042-6989(79)90005-1 Get rights and content

Abstract

The role of different parts of the human retina in eliciting optokinetic pursuit was investigated with continuously moving random dot or grid patterns (dia up to 30°). The retinal location and velocity of the stimulus could be fixed by servo control of the stimulus position by the eye position, and artificial scotomata could be inserted into the stimulus. Under these conditions (opened optokinetic feedback loop) pursuit velocity became much larger than the stimulus velocity. With a central stimulus, pursuit velocity (gain) in the 8 principal directions showed individual, but no systematic differences. In the periphery, a centrifugal stimulus movement was much more effective than a centripetal movement. This directional preference may assist foveation. Pursuit open-loop gain was only moderately diminished by a decrease of the stimulus diameter, but much more severely by deleting small parts in the centre. This indicates that the fovea is more powerful than the periphery in eliciting optokinetic pursuit. The distribution of fast and slow nystagmic phases with respect to the primary position was unaffected by the use of open-loop conditions or central scotomata. For all peripheral stimuli, the responses were strongly enhanced by the subject's specific attention.

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Cited by (96)

The behavior of the optokinetic system
2022, Progress in Brain Research
Citation Excerpt :
In the study of Koerner and Schiller (1972) a large OKAN was observed in the dark indicating that the visual stimulus was compelling enough to activate the optokinetic system. In the case of Dubois and Collewijn (1979a), the stimulus stripes were confined to a smaller part of the retina and no OKAN occurred. It may be that their data apply largely to the pursuit system.
Optokinetic responses in several species are compared, describing differences in afoveate and foveate animals, and the effects of visual testing conditions, including directions of stimulus motion. Smooth pursuit contributes to responses to full-field visual motion in foveate species; in the latter, measurement of optokinetic after-nystagmus in darkness allows investigation of the optokinetic system. The concept of optokinetic-vestibular symbiosis and velocity storage are discussed, pertinent electrophysiological studies (such as vestibular nucleus neurons that respond to both optokinetic and vestibular stimuli) are reviewed and a model is developed. The different purposes and properties of optokinetic responses (to maintain clear vision during self-rotation) and smooth pursuit (to visually track a moving target) are clarified.
Properties of pursuit movements
2022, Progress in Brain Research
Citation Excerpt :
Such stimuli can be quite far in the periphery and the pursuit system can evidently use image motion anywhere on the retina to initiate a smooth movement. Dubois and Collewijn (1979) stabilized a visual pattern onto various portions of the retina within which the images of a random dot pattern could be moved at a constant velocity across the retina. Thus, they could measure the open-loop gain of the tracking system when the stimulus was confined to given regions of the retina.
This chapter describes dynamic properties of smooth pursuit, visual and non-visual stimuli for pursuit, smooth eye-head tracking movements, and plastic-adaptive properties of pursuit. Step-ramp visual stimulus motion has revealed important properties of pursuit, including the latency to onset, initial acceleration, accuracy, and transient oscillations—all features that have been used to develop models of the pursuit system, discussed in the chapter “Models of pursuit” by Robinson. The role of predictive neural mechanisms in generating pursuit movements that anticipate target motion, and that enable near-perfect tracking of sinusoidal target motion, are examined. Smooth pursuit can be generated in response to targets that do not move, such as stroboscopic lights and images stabilized in the periphery of vision. The view that, during combined eye-head pursuit, the pursuit signal is used to cancel the vestibulo-ocular reflex is an incomplete hypothesis, contradicted by behavioral and electrophysiological findings. Smooth pursuit shows adaptive capabilities, evident in individuals who develop extraocular muscle palsies.
Neurophysiology of the optokinetic system
2022, Progress in Brain Research
This chapter provides a review of early studies into the neural substrate for optokinetic-vestibular responses. Properties and connections of retinal and brainstem neurons contributing to optokinetic responses in the afoveate rabbit are summarized. Electrophysiological and lesion studies provide support for confluence of optokinetic and vestibular signals in the vestibular nucleus to provide the brain's estimate of self-rotation. Evidence for optokinetic-vestibular symbiosis in humans comes from the observation that individuals who have lost vestibular function show no optokinetic after-nystagmus in darkness, following full-field stimulus motion. An anatomical scheme for brainstem elaboration of optokinetic responses is proposed and cerebellar contributions are reviewed.
Estimation of the degree of autism spectrum disorder by the slow phase of optokinetic nystagmus in typical adults
2021, Heliyon
Citation Excerpt :
For example, the mean eye position shifted to the left when the direction of the motion stimulus was rightward (leftward). This result is consistent with those in previous studies (Jung and Mittermaier, 1939; Dubois and Collewijn, 1979; Abadi et al., 1999). This study revealed a negative correlation between participants' AQ scores and the gain of OKN.
Atypical eye movement patterns demonstrated by individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have the potential to serve as biomarkers for ASD diagnosis. However, instead of estimating individual differences in the degree of ASD from those patterns, many researchers have compared ASD groups with typical development groups. This study investigates the relationship between the Autism-spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores in typical adults, which can evaluate the degree of the traits associated with ASD, as well as the properties of optokinetic nystagmus (OKN), including the gain of the slow phase, the peak velocity and duration of the fast phase, the frequency, and the mean eye position of OKN. A random dot pattern that moved in one direction was presented on the display, and the participants' eye movements were measured. The results showed a negative correlation between subjects' AQ scores and the gain of slow-phase OKN. In addition, the correlations between subjects' AQ scores and the properties of OKN fast phase were not significant. These results indicate that the gain of slow-phase OKN could be a biomarker that estimates individual differences in the degree of ASD, reflected in our findings which considered AQ scores in typical adults.
A system to measure the Optokinetic and Optomotor response in mice
2015, Journal of Neuroscience Methods
Visually evoked compensatory head movements (Optomotor responses) or eye movements (Optokinetic responses) are extensively used in experimental mouse models for developmental defects, pathological conditions, and testing the efficacy of therapeutic manipulations.
We present an automated system to measure Optomotor and Optokinetic responses under identical stimulation conditions, enabling a direct comparison of the two reflexes. A semi-automated calibration procedure and a commercial eye tracker are used to record angular eye velocity in the restrained animal. Novel video tracking algorithms determine the location of the mouse head in real time and allow repositioning of the stimulus relative to the mouse head.
Optomotor and Optokinetic responses yield comparable results with respect to determining visual acuity in mice. Our new head tracking algorithms enable a far more accurate analysis of head angle determination, and reveal individual head retractions, analogous to saccadic eye movements observed during Optokinetic Nystagmus.
To our knowledge this is the first apparatus allowing the direct comparison of Optomotor and Optokinetic responses in mice. Our tracking algorithms, which allow an objective determination of head movements are a significant increment over existing systems which rely on subjective human observation. The increased accuracy of the novel algorithms increases the robustness of automated Optomotor response determinations and reveals novel aspects of this reflex.
We provide the blueprints for inexpensive hardware, and release open source software for our system, and describe an accurate and accessible method for Optomotor and Optokinetic response determination in mice.
Optokinetic nystagmus is elicited by curvilinear optic flow during high speed curve driving
2011, Vision Research
Citation Excerpt :
Instead, participants had to control the lateral position and the speed of a simulated vehicle (with visual and sound feedback) and were instructed to drive as fast as possible without ever leaving the right lane. Attentional factors are known to alter OKN speed gains (Dubois & Collewijn, 1979; Mestre & Masson, 1997). Even if the driver’s gaze is located in the TP area, it is susceptible to be sensitive to optic flow components of another part of the visual field, which on top may have very different characteristics.
When analyzing gaze behavior during curve driving, it is commonly accepted that gaze is mostly located in the vicinity of the tangent point, being the point where gaze direction tangents the curve inside edge. This approach neglects the fact that the tangent point is actually motionless only in the limit case when the trajectory precisely follows the curve’s geometry. In this study, we measured gaze behavior during curve driving, with the general hypothesis that gaze is not static, when exposed to a global optical flow due to self-motion. In order to study spatio-temporal aspects of gaze during curve driving, we used a driving simulator coupled to a gaze recording system. Ten participants drove seven runs on a track composed of eight curves of various radii (50, 100, 200 and 500 m), with each radius appearing in both right and left directions. Results showed that average gaze position was, as previously described, located in the vicinity of the tangent point. However, analysis also revealed the presence of a systematic optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) around the tangent point position. The OKN slow phase direction does not match the local optic flow direction, while slow phase speed is about half of the local speed. Higher directional gains are observed when averaging the entire optical flow projected on the simulation display, whereas the best speed gain is obtained for a 2° optic flow area, centered on the instantaneous gaze location. The present study confirms that the tangent point is a privileged feature in the dynamic visual scene during curve driving, and underlines a contribution of the global optical flow to gaze behavior during active self-motion.

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Optokinetic reactions in man elicited by localized retinal motion stimuli

Abstract

Brain Res.

Vision Res.

Vision Res.

Vision Res.

Brain Res.

Vision Res.

Optokinetic nystagmus during selective retinal stimulation

Expl. Brain Res.

Precise recording of human eye movements

Vision Res.

Receptive-field organization of monkey superior colliculus

J. Neurophysiol.

Properties of excitatory and inhibitory regions in the receptive fields of single units in the cat's superior colliculus

Expl Brain Res.

Observations upon the neurological mechanism of optokinetic nystagmus with especial reference to the contribution of peripheral vision

Acta otolar.