The upper limit of human smooth pursuit velocity

A new method for analyzing smooth-pursuit eye movements. Description of a microcomputer program and evaluation in healthy volunteers

The study of ocular movements has been increasingly used to detect subtle pathological modifications, caused by a wide variety of neurological diseases. We have developed a new microcomputer-based method for the analysis of smooth-pursuit ocular movements induced by constant velocity targets moving unpredictably at different velocities (including velocity values as high as 100 deg/s). The ocular movements are recorded by an electro-oculographic technique using silver-silver chloride electrodes fixed near the inner and outer canthi of both eyes. The signals are amplified by two DC amplifiers after a low-pass filtering (50 Hz), sampled at 250 Hz and digitized in a 12-bit form by an analog/digital converter. For each patient's evaluation, a series of 20 sweeps of the target is generated. The data analysis, which is performed automatically by the microcomputer, is based on the calculation of four parameters: average peak eye velocity (APEV); typical target velocity (TTV); percent target matching index after saccade removal (PTMI); typical matching target velocity (TMTV) after saccade removal. APEV is calculated as the average of the peak velocities estimated from the 20 sweeps. The purpose of TTV, which is defined as the value of target velocity at which the percent gain has decreased to slightly more than one third of the maximum percent gain, is to provide an overall index of the rate at which the percent gain decreases as the target velocity increases. PTMI describes the eye performance for each value of target velocity.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Impaired eye tracking performance in patients with presenile onset dementia

Smooth pursuit eye movements, saccades and eye blinks were electrooculographically recorded from 26 healthy subjects of different age and 35 patients with presumptive presenile onset dementia (mean age 54), who had to track a light spot which oscillated with different speeds. Older subjects (mean age 51) performed the eye tracking with less accuracy and more saccades than younger ones (mean age 22). 16 patients with stage CDR 1 according to Washington University Clinical Dementia Rating performed smooth pursuit eye movements significantly worse with increased saccade numbers than the healthy older subjects and lost attention significantly more often which was measured by omitted trackings to presented target oscillations. Their number of eye blinks was partly increased. The test is found suitable for early diagnosis of dementia onset, supporting clinical findings and presumptive diagnosis by objective parameters.

Smooth pursuit eye movements of normal and schizophrenic subjects tracking an unpredictable target

An experimental paradigm employed by several workers in the field of schizophrenic eye movements has involved finding sequences of stimuli that induce saccadic smooth pursuit in the eye movements of normal individuals. It is hoped that the identification of such stimuli will lead to clues concerning the etiology or nature of eye tracking dysfunction in schizophrenia. In this study, the pursuit eye movements of normal and schizophrenic subjects tracking an unpredictable target (composed of summed sine waves) were examined. Eye tracking performance was evaluated both qualitatively and quantitatively using percent root-mean-square (%RMS) error and pursuit gain scores. Schizophrenics are capable of tracking an unpredictable target. This finding has implications for our understanding of schizophrenic information processing during visual tracking.

Oculomotor responses to step-ramp targets by young human infants

Previous research has shown that the smooth pursuit system in early infancy is quite immature. Infants' tracking of a single, small target moving at velocities greater than 10 deg/sec is almost entirely saccadic until the end of the second postnatal month. The emergence of smooth pursuit is characterized by low gain (less than 0.5) and frequent saccadic intrusions. To provide a quantitative description of pursuit to relatively slow target velocities, 10 infants ranging in age from 7 to 11 weeks viewed a 2 deg target that was stepped 5 to 10 deg from screen center and then ramped back to screen center and 10 deg beyond at a constant velocity of 3, 6 or 12 deg/sec. Smooth pursuit was observed even in the youngest infant whose segments of pursuit between saccades were up to 5 sec in duration. At the slowest target velocity, mean pursuit gain across infants was 0.50, while at 6 and 12 deg/sec mean pursuit gain was 0.25 and 0.11. This systematic decrease in pursuit gain with increasing target velocity implies that pursuit velocity was invariant across the three target velocities. These findings suggest that smooth pursuit can be generated consistently by the end of the second postnatal month, but that it is slow and uncalibrated to the velocity of the target.

Stimulus characteristics influence the gain of smooth pursuit eye movements in normal subjects

Impaired smooth pursuit eye movements are commonly believed to indicate a lesion of the central nervous system. Smooth pursuit performance, however, is strongly dependent on non-specific variables like cooperation, arousal and attentiveness. Therefore, disturbed smooth pursuit can be attributed either to lesions of the smooth pursuit system per se, or to the influence of non-controlled variables (non-structural disturbances). This renders the evaluation of smooth pursuit uncertain. In the present study we attempted to design a stimulus that yields smooth pursuit eye movements, which are not influenced by uncontrolled variations of state and input, for a better separation of structural lesions of the pursuit system and the effect of nonspecific variables. Our results suggest that a stimulus that leads to a centrally generated representation (percept) of motion is most suitable to elicit high gains of smooth pursuit (sigma pursuit), but only if attentiveness is optimal. Beta-motion (motion elicited by discrete steps of the target) or real target motion are capable to render the smooth pursuit performance optimal, even with low attentiveness, when the fixation point and its wider surroundings or enough discrete points in the neighbourhood move in the same direction in space.

Human horizontal optokinetic nystagmus elicited by the upper versus the lower visual fields

A 30-deg-high horizontally rotating random-dot display was presented to the central field, and with its more central edge at vertical eccentricities of 0, 2.5, 5, and 10 deg above or below the horizon. Stimulus velocities of 25-100 deg/s and two directions of motion were presented. The mean gain of the slow phases of optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) for five subjects was significantly higher when the stimulus was presented to the lower visual field than when the stimulus was presented to the upper field. This difference was most pronounced when the display was displaced 5 deg from the fovea and moving below 100 deg/s. Our results are consistent with existing psychophysical and physiological evidence for the superiority of the upper retina. In addition, four of the five observors showed significant directional asymmetries.

Control of the optokinetic reflex by the nucleus of the optic tract in primates

Physiological and anatomical experiments clearly established the existence of a pretectal relay of visual information to the ipsilateral inferior olive in the macaque monkey. Horseradish peroxidase injected into the inferior olivary nucleus retrogradely labelled neurons in the nucleus of the optic tract (NOT) and the dorsal terminal nucleus of the accessory optic tract (DTN). The response characteristics of NOT-DTN neurones are described in this chapter. The visual receptive fields of neurones in NOT and DTN in anaesthetized and paralysed macaque monkeys prefer horizontal ipsiversive movements of single objects or whole field random dot patterns, i.e. neurones in the left NOT-DTN prefer leftward movements and vice versa. The directional tuning widths of NOT-DTN neurones are very broad. Directions withing a mean range of 127 +/- 25 degrees visual angle elicit response strengths greater than 50% of the maximal response. Visual latencies to reversals in directions of stimulus movement are in a range from 40 to 80 ms (mean 61 +/- 13 ms). Combining two visual stimuli by moving a random dot pattern and a single bar of light simultaneously but in opposite directions causes NOT-DTN neurones to respond to each stimulus as soon as it moves in the cell's preferred direction. The reduced overall response strengths indicate additional inhibitory interactions. All NOT-DTN neurones can be activated from each eye. Interactions between the two eyes are modest and unspecific. Optical speeds of stimulus movement vary for different NOT-DTN neurones (4-60 deg/s). The effective range of speeds is broad (0.1-400 deg/s for the total population). With oscillating horizontal stimulation NOT-DTN neurones follow repetition rates up to 4 Hz. Receptive fields are mostly large (20-40 degrees visual angle), include the fovea, and extend up to 20 degrees into the ipsilateral hemifield. The sensitivity to moving stimuli is highest near the fovea. Our results thus indicate that direction selective cells in the NOT and DTN have all the properties and connections which are necessary and sufficient to control the stability of the image on the retina by supplying retinal slip information to the velocity storage integrator in the brainstem (Raphan et al., 1979).

Oculo-manual tracking of visual targets: control learning, coordination control and coordination model

The processes which develop to coordinate eye and hand movements in response to motion of a visual target were studied in young children and adults. We have shown that functional maturation of the coordination control between eye and hand takes place as a result of training. We observed, in the trained child and in the adult, that when the hand is used either as a target or to track a visual target, the dynamic characteristics of the smooth pursuit system are markedly improved: the eye to target delay is decreased from 150 ms in eye alone tracking to 30 ms, and smooth pursuit maximum velocity is increased by 100%. Coordination signals between arm and eye motor systems may be responsible for smooth pursuit eye movements which occur during self-tracking of hand or finger in darkness. These signals may also account for the higher velocity smooth pursuit eye movements and the shortened tracking delay when the hand is used as a target, as well as for the synkinetic eye-arm motions observed at the early stage of oculo-manual tracking training in children. We propose a model to describe the interaction which develops between two systems involved in the execution of a common sensorimotor task. The model applies to the visuo-oculo-manual tracking system, but it may be generalized to other coordinated systems. According to our definition, coordination control results from the reciprocal transfer of sensory and motor information between two or more systems involved in the execution of single, goal-directed or conjugate actions. This control, originating in one or more highly specialized structures of the central nervous system, combines with the control processes normally operating in each system. Our model relies on two essential notions which describe the dynamic and static aspects of coordination control: timing and mutual coupling.

Pursuit and saccadic eye movements in response to unpredictable constant velocity targets

Pursuit eye movements in response to unpredictable reversals of constant velocity target motion at 20 degrees, 40 degrees and 60 degrees/s were analysed in 20 normal subjects. The gain in smooth pursuit was originally determined by the preceding target duration; the shorter the preceding movement, the longer was the acceleration of pursuit velocity inhibited. The ongoing target duration secondarily affected the gain at faster target velocities by restricting time for eye velocity acceleration. Whereas the saccadic reaction time was around 200 ms, the intersaccadic interval shortened as target velocity increased. The saccadic amplitude increased in direct proportion to an increase in target velocity. The present study showed that, even under irregular stimulations, pursuit eye movement is regulated in a feedforward manner by the perceptual analysis of the preceding target motion, and that corrective saccades in pursuit eye movement correspond to those observed in step displacements, except for the programming on the basis of the changing rate of position error.

Cerebellar involvement in the coordination control of the oculo-manual tracking system: effects of cerebellar dentate nucleus lesion

When the hand of the observer is used as a visual target, oculomotor performance evaluated in terms of tracking accuracy, delay and maximal ocular velocity is higher than when the subject tracks a visual target presented on a screen. The coordination control exerted by the motor system of the arm on the oculomotor system has two sources: the transfer of kinaesthetic information originating in the arm which increases the mutual coupling between the arm and the eyes and information from the arm movement efferent copy which synchronizes the motor activities of both subsystems (Gauthier et al. 1988; Gauthier and Mussa-Ivaldi 1988). We investigated the involvement of the cerebellum in coordination control during a visuo-oculo-manual tracking task. Experiments were conducted on baboons trained to track visual targets with the eyes and/or the hand. The role of the cerebellum was determined by comparing tracking performance defined in terms of delay, accuracy (position or velocity tracking errors) and maximal velocity, before and after lesioning the cerebellar dentate nucleus. Results showed that in the intact animal, ocular tracking was more saccadic when the monkey followed an external target than when it moved the target with its hand. After lesioning, eye-alone tracking of a visual target as well as eye-and-hand-tracking with the hand contralateral to the lesion was little if at all affected. Conversely, ocular tracking of the hand ipsilateral to the lesion side became more saccadic and the correlation between eye and hand movement decreased considerably while the delay between target and eyes increased. In normal animals, the delay between the eyes and the hand was close to zero, and maximal smooth pursuit velocity was around 100 degrees per second with close to unity gain; in eye-alone tracking the delay and maximal smooth pursuit velocity were 200 ms and 50 deg per second, respectively. After lesioning, delay and maximum velocity were respectively around 210 ms and 40 deg per second, that is close to the values measured in eye-alone tracking. Thus, after dentate lesioning, the oculomotor system was unable to use information from the motor system of the arm to enhance its performance. We conclude that the cerebellum is involved in the "coordination control" between the oculomotor and manual motor systems in visuo-oculo-manual tracking tasks.

Stimulus conditions that enhance anticipatory slow eye movements

Anticipatory slow eye movements are predictive responses that occur prior to both ramp and step target motions. These low velocity eye movements are enhanced and can be studied in isolation by transient target disappearance before ramp motion onset. Slow eye velocities also decrease prior to the termination of target motion. In experiments using a bistable apparent motion stimulus, it was found that perceived motion is a stimulus for anticipatory slow eye movements. This relationship between motion perception and anticipatory slow eye movements can explain previously noted differences between these predictive movements and the predictive component of smooth pursuit.

Smooth pursuit in senescence. Effects of target acceleration and velocity

Smooth pursuit responses to sinusoidal and triangular waveform targets were investigated in elderly and middle-aged subjects. The middle-aged pursued triangular targets with significantly lower gain than sinusoidal targets. In the elderly, pursuit gain was significantly lower than in the middle-aged under all target conditions. When all smooth eye movements at a constant frequency were correlated with varying target velocity, pursuit gain was uniformly reduced in the elderly, irrespective of target velocity up to 63 degrees/s or accelerations up to 395 degrees/s2. Within these limits, the steady-state gain of pursuit was depressed. At higher target accelerations having the same velocity range, smooth pursuit velocities were further reduced in the elderly. Senescent tracking is depressed by involvement of the steady-state gain element of the pursuit system at low target accelerations and by acceleration saturation at higher demands.

Compensatory eye movements during active head rotation for near targets: effects of imagination, rapid head oscillation and vergence

Because the center of natural head rotation lies some distance behind the centers of eye rotation, the VOR has to operate with a gain substantially above 1 for there to be stable fixation of targets lying near the head. In humans, VOR gain was increased inversely proportional to fixation distance and changed with the angle of the head for very near targets. These effects were also evident when the subject imagined the target. However, this "high-gain" VOR was found to deteriorate substantially at frequencies beyond ca 2.5 Hz. In conditions without visual feedback, the VOR gain enhancement due to near fixation was disrupted by monocular viewing. When the subjects wore lenses to relax or increase accommodation, the lenses were found to have no effect on VOR gain. On the other hand, prisms of equivalent power to the lenses had a large effect whereby gain was adjusted according to the vergence state of the eyes. This suggests that VOR gain modulation is under the direct control of convergence.

Sensitivity of smooth eye movement to small differences in target velocity

The precision of smooth pursuit eye movements was described by means of a new dependent measure, the "oculomotor difference threshold" (analogous to the perceptual difference threshold) which represents the smallest difference in target velocity that produces statistically distinguishable differences in eye velocity. Oculomotor difference thresholds for constant velocity motions were largest (greater than 50% of target velocity) during the initial 200 msec of target motion, despite fairly high average gains (0.7-1.4) during the same period. Oculomotor difference thresholds declined over time. By about 600-700 msec after the onset of target motion they reached values as low as the perceptual difference thresholds measured psychophysically with the same target velocities. The similarity of the difference thresholds suggests that equally precise sensory representations of target velocity influenced perception and smooth eye movements. Nonsensory influences on smooth eye movement were also found. Smooth pursuit velocity: (1) depended on the velocity of targets in preceding trials; (2) was decreased during the initial 200 msec of target motion when the duration of motion was reduced from 1 sec to 200 msec, a result which shows that high initial pursuit velocity depends on the expectation that pursuit will continue. These effects of context and expected duration allowed the eye to achieve quickly a velocity close to that of the target it was most likely to encounter. Study of the precision of pursuit may be valuable for characterizing its sensory input, but study of the effects of the context in which a stimulus appears and the effects of expectations about future target motion may be more valuable for understanding how smooth eye movements guarantee retinal image velocities optimal for vision.

A model of the smooth pursuit eye movement system

Human, horizontal, smooth-pursuit eye movements were recorded by the search coil method in response to Rashbass step-ramp stimuli of 5 to 30 deg/s. Eye velocity records were analyzed by measuring features such as the time, velocity and acceleration of the point of peak acceleration, the time and velocity of the peaks and troughs of ringing and steady-state velocity. These values were averaged and mean responses reconstructed. Three normal subjects were studied and their responses averaged. All showed a peak acceleration-velocity saturation. All had ringing frequencies near 3.8 Hz and the mean steady-state gain was 0.95. It is argued that a single, linear forward path with any transfer function G(s) and a 100 ms delay (latency) cannot simultaneously simulate the initial rise of acceleration and ring at 3.8 Hz based on a Bode analysis. Also such a simple negative feedback model cannot have a steady-state gain greater than 1.0; a situation that occurs frequently experimentally. L.R. Young's model, which employs internal positive feedback to eliminate the built-in unity negative feedback, was felt necessary to resolve this problem and a modification of that model is proposed which simulates the data base. Acceleration saturation is achieved by borrowing the idea of the local feedback model for saccades so that one nonlinearity can account for the acceleration-velocity saturation: the main sequence for pursuit. Motor plasticity or motor learning, recently demonstrated for pursuit, is also incorporated and simulated. It was noticed that the offset of pursuit did not show the ringing seen in the onset so this was quantified in one subject. Offset velocity could be characterized by a single exponential with a time constant of about 90 ms. This observation suggests that fixation is not pursuit at zero velocity and that the pursuit system is turned on when needed and off during fixation.

The systems approach to the oculomotor system

Recent progress in understanding the oculomotor system is briefly reviewed. This progress is largely due to technological advances such as the ability to record from neurons in behaving animals. Furthermore, parts of the oculomotor system are now well-enough understood that the techniques of exact science, such as quantitation and mathematical description, are becoming useful. This, in turn, leads to the use of the language of systems analysis, and the vestibulo-ocular reflex is examined as an example of such a description. Systems analysis not only organizes current knowledge but leads to predictions by way of hypotheses known as models. A model of time integration by neurons is given as an example. It is put forward to illustrate that our biggest problem at the moment is an inability to test such models at the neuronal network level.

Human smooth pursuit: effects of stimulus extent and of spatial and temporal constraints of the pursuit trajectory

We compared the quality of monocular smooth pursuit obtained with either a single point, a full-field stripe pattern or their combination as the target for unidirectional stimulus motion at velocities between 9 and 90 deg/sec. A point target moving in a fixed trajectory maximally constrains target selection as well as pursuit trajectory, whereas a full-field multicontoured pattern leaves the subject maximal freedom in these respects. To unconfound effects of pattern extent from those of spatial and temporal constraints, we presented point targets under conditions in which the subject was free to choose the location, extent and temporal structure of his pursuit trajectory ("free range"). Pursuit velocity gains were lowest for the point target moving in a fixed trajectory. Gain improved when the subject was free to pursue the same target moving at the same velocity in his own preferred range and rhythm. A further improvement was reached by showing the stripe pattern in addition to, and moving in conjunction with the spot. A final increase in gain occurred when the spot was removed, and the subject was allowed to pursue any feature of the uniformly moving, multicontoured pattern. No asymmetries were found between monocular pursuit with the right or the left eye, pursuit of rightward and leftward motion or between nasal- and temporalward motion. Effects of the type of target on the structure of the nystagmoid pursuit eye movements were slight or absent.