fMRI evidence for sensorimotor transformations in human cortex during smooth pursuit eye movements

Evidence for Spinozan "Unbelieving" in the Right Inferior Prefrontal Cortex

Humans can think about possible states of the world without believing in them, an important capacity for high-level cognition. Here, we use fMRI and a novel "shell game" task to test two competing theories about the nature of belief and its neural basis. According to the Cartesian theory, information is first understood, then assessed for veracity, and ultimately encoded as either believed or not believed. According to the Spinozan theory, comprehension entails belief by default, such that understanding without believing requires an additional process of "unbelieving." Participants (n = 70) were experimentally induced to have beliefs, desires, or mere thoughts about hidden states of the shell game (e.g., believing that the dog is hidden in the upper right corner). That is, participants were induced to have specific "propositional attitudes" toward specific "propositions" in a controlled way. Consistent with the Spinozan theory, we found that thinking about a proposition without believing it is associated with increased activation of the right inferior frontal gyrus. This was true whether the hidden state was desired by the participant (because of reward) or merely thought about. These findings are consistent with a version of the Spinozan theory whereby unbelieving is an inhibitory control process. We consider potential implications of these results for the phenomena of delusional belief and wishful thinking.

Neural mechanisms of background and velocity effects in smooth pursuit eye movements

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) are essential to guide behaviour in complex visual environments. SPEM accuracy is known to be degraded by the presence of a structured visual background and at higher target velocities. The aim of this preregistered study was to investigate the neural mechanisms of these robust behavioural effects. N = 33 participants performed a SPEM task with two background conditions (present and absent) at two target velocities (0.4 and 0.6 Hz). Eye movement and BOLD data were collected simultaneously. Both the presence of a structured background and faster target velocity decreased pursuit gain and increased catch-up saccade rate. Faster targets additionally increased position error. Higher BOLD response with background was found in extensive clusters in visual, parietal, and frontal areas (including the medial frontal eye fields; FEF) partially overlapping with the known SPEM network. Faster targets were associated with higher BOLD response in visual cortex and left lateral FEF. Task-based functional connectivity analyses (psychophysiological interactions; PPI) largely replicated previous results in the basic SPEM network but did not yield additional information regarding the neural underpinnings of the background and velocity effects. The results show that the presentation of visual background stimuli during SPEM induces activity in a widespread visuo-parieto-frontal network including areas contributing to cognitive aspects of oculomotor control such as medial FEF, whereas the response to higher target velocity involves visual and motor areas such as lateral FEF. Therefore, we were able to propose for the first time different functions of the medial and lateral FEF during SPEM.

The human middle temporal cortex responds to both active leg movements and egomotion-compatible visual motion

The human middle-temporal region MT+ is highly specialized in processing visual motion. However, recent studies have shown that this region is modulated by extraretinal signals, suggesting a possible involvement in processing motion information also from non-visual modalities. Here, we used functional MRI data to investigate the influence of retinal and extraretinal signals on MT+ in a large sample of subjects. Moreover, we used resting-state functional MRI to assess how the subdivisions of MT+ (i.e., MST, FST, MT, and V4t) are functionally connected. We first compared responses in MST, FST, MT, and V4t to coherent vs. random visual motion. We found that only MST and FST were positively activated by coherent motion. Furthermore, regional analyses revealed that MST and FST were positively activated by leg, but not arm, movements, while MT and V4t were deactivated by arm, but not leg, movements. Taken together, regional analyses revealed a visuomotor role for the anterior areas MST and FST and a pure visual role for the anterior areas MT and V4t. These findings were mirrored by the pattern of functional connections between these areas and the rest of the brain. Visual and visuomotor regions showed distinct patterns of functional connectivity, with the latter preferentially connected with the somatosensory and motor areas representing leg and foot. Overall, these findings reveal a functional sensitivity for coherent visual motion and lower-limb movements in MST and FST, suggesting their possible involvement in integrating sensory and motor information to perform locomotion.

Neural Correlates of Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements in Schizotypy and Recent Onset Psychosis: A Multivariate Pattern Classification Approach

Schizotypy refers to a set of personality traits that bear resemblance, at subclinical level, to psychosis. Despite evidence of similarity at multiple levels of analysis, direct comparisons of schizotypy and clinical psychotic disorders are rare. Therefore, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates and task-based functional connectivity (psychophysiological interactions; PPI) of smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) in patients with recent onset psychosis (ROP; n = 34), participants with high levels of negative (HNS; n = 46) or positive (HPS; n = 41) schizotypal traits, and low-schizotypy control participants (LS; n = 61) using machine-learning. Despite strong previous evidence that SPEM is a highly reliable marker of psychosis, patients and controls could not be significantly distinguished based on SPEM performance or blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signal during SPEM. Classification was, however, significant for the right frontal eye field (FEF) seed region in the PPI analyses but not for seed regions in other key areas of the SPEM network. Applying the right FEF classifier to the schizotypal samples yielded decision scores between the LS and ROP groups, suggesting similarities and dissimilarities of the HNS and HPS samples with the LS and ROP groups. The very small difference between groups is inconsistent with previous studies that showed significant differences between patients with ROP and controls in both SPEM performance and underlying neural mechanisms with large effect sizes. As the current study had sufficient power to detect such differences, other reasons are discussed.

The cingulate oculomotor cortex

Knowledge about the relevance and extent of human eye movement control in the cingulate cortex to date is very limited. Experiments in non-human primates brought about evidence for a potentially central role of the dorsal bank of the cingulate sulcus in saccadic eye movements. In humans, a putative cingulate eye field (CEF) in the same region has been proposed; however, its function and location still remain controversial. Another area in the posterior cingulate cortex, the cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv), has been shown to respond to visual motion cues and also ocular motor tasks. In this study we used multi-band neuroimaging (n = 46) to comprehensively characterize oculomotor responses along the entire cingulate cortex during the most common types of eye movements. We were able to robustly localize the CEF to the anterior portion of the midcingulate gyrus. The region gave responses during all oculomotor tasks and is embedded within the ventral attention network. Area CSv, which is located in the anterior portion of the posterior cingulate gyrus, on the other hand responded to smooth pursuit and optokinetic nystagmus only. It likewise represents a node within the ventral attention network but at the same time seems to be a distinctive part of the somatomotor network. Our findings support an executive role of the CEF, suggesting a cognitive control function in maintaining and adapting different kinds of eye movements. CSv on the other hand might be an interface for relaying oculomotor, visual motion and broad sensory signals related to self-motion.

Functional connectivity during smooth pursuit eye movements

Smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM) hold the image of a slowly moving stimulus on the fovea. The neural system underlying SPEM primarily includes visual, parietal, and frontal areas. In the present study, we investigated how these areas are functionally coupled and how these couplings are influenced by target motion frequency. To this end, healthy participants (n = 57) were instructed to follow a sinusoidal target stimulus moving horizontally at two different frequencies (0.2 Hz, 0.4 Hz). Eye movements and blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) activity were recorded simultaneously. Functional connectivity of the key areas of the SPEM network was investigated with a psychophysiological interaction (PPI) approach. How activity in five eye movement-related seed regions (lateral geniculate nucleus, V1, V5, posterior parietal cortex, frontal eye fields) relates to activity in other parts of the brain during SPEM was analyzed. The behavioral results showed clear deterioration of SPEM performance at higher target frequency. BOLD activity during SPEM versus fixation occurred in a geniculo-occipito-parieto-frontal network, replicating previous findings. PPI analysis yielded widespread, partially overlapping networks. In particular, frontal eye fields and posterior parietal cortex showed task-dependent connectivity to large parts of the entire cortex, whereas other seed regions demonstrated more regionally focused connectivity. Higher target frequency was associated with stronger activations in visual areas but had no effect on functional connectivity. In summary, the results confirm and extend previous knowledge regarding the neural mechanisms underlying SPEM and provide a valuable basis for further investigations such as in patients with SPEM impairments and known alterations in brain connectivity.NEW & NOTEWORTHY This study provides a comprehensive investigation of blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) functional connectivity during smooth pursuit eye movements. Results from a large sample of healthy participants suggest that key oculomotor regions interact closely with each other but also with regions not primarily associated with eye movements. Understanding functional connectivity during smooth pursuit is important, given its potential role as an endophenotype of psychoses.

Distributed Visual–Vestibular Processing in the Cerebral Cortex of Man and Macaque

Recent advances in understanding the neurobiological underpinnings of visual–vestibular interactions underlying self-motion perception are reviewed with an emphasis on comparisons between the macaque and human brains. In both species, several distinct cortical regions have been identified that are active during both visual and vestibular stimulation and in some of these there is clear evidence for sensory integration. Several possible cross-species homologies between cortical regions are identified. A key feature of cortical organization is that the same information is apparently represented in multiple, anatomically diverse cortical regions, suggesting that information about self-motion is used for different purposes in different brain regions.

Neural mechanisms of smooth pursuit eye movements in schizotypy

Patients with schizophrenia as well as individuals with high levels of schizotypy are known to have deficits in smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM). Here, we investigated, for the first time, the neural mechanisms underlying SPEM performance in high schizotypy. Thirty-one healthy participants [N = 19 low schizotypes, N = 12 high schizotypes (HS)] underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging at 3T with concurrent oculographic recording while performing a SPEM task with sinusoidal stimuli at two velocities (0.2 and 0.4 Hz). Behaviorally, a significant interaction between schizotypy group and velocity was found for frequency of saccades during SPEM, indicating impairments in HS in the slow but not the fast condition. On the neural level, HS demonstrated lower brain activation in different regions of the occipital lobe known to be associated with early sensory and attentional processing and motion perception (V3A, middle occipital gyrus, and fusiform gyrus). This group difference in neural activation was independent of target velocity. Together, these findings replicate the observation of altered pursuit performance in highly schizotypal individuals and, for the first time, identify brain activation patterns accompanying these performance changes. These posterior activation differences are compatible with evidence of motion processing deficits from the schizophrenia literature and, therefore, suggest overlap between schizotypy and schizophrenia both on cognitive-perceptual and neurophysiological levels. However, deficits in frontal motor areas observed during pursuit in schizophrenia were not seen here, suggesting the operation of additional genetic and/or illness-related influences in the clinical disorder.

Visual motion processing and visual sensorimotor control in autism

Impairments in visual motion perception and use of visual motion information to guide behavior have been reported in autism, but the brain alterations underlying these abnormalities are not well characterized. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies to investigate neural correlates of impairments related to visual motion processing. Sixteen high-functioning individuals with autism and 14 age and IQ-matched typically developing individuals completed two fMRI tasks using passive viewing to examine bottom-up responses to visual motion and visual pursuit tracking to assess top-down modulation of visual motion processing during sensorimotor control. The autism group showed greater activation and faster hemodynamic decay in V5 during the passive viewing task and reduced frontal and V5 activation during visual pursuit. The observations of increased V5 activation and its faster decay during passive viewing suggest alterations in local V5 circuitries that may be associated with reduced GABAergic tone and inhibitory modulation. Reduced frontal and V5 activation during active pursuit suggest reduced top-down modulation of sensory processing. These results suggest that both local intrinsic abnormalities in V5 and more widely distributed network level abnormalities are associated with visual motion processing in autism.

Cortical oscillatory changes in human middle temporal cortex underlying smooth pursuit eye movements

Extra-striate regions are thought to receive non-retinal signals from the pursuit system to maintain perceptual stability during eye movements. Here, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to study changes in oscillatory power related to smooth pursuit in extra-striate visual areas under three conditions: 'pursuit' of a small target, 'retinal motion' of a large background and 'pursuit + retinal motion' combined. All stimuli moved sinusoidally. MEG source reconstruction was performed using synthetic aperture magnetometry. Broadband alpha-beta suppression (5-25 Hz) was observed over bilateral extra-striate cortex (consistent with middle temporal cortex (MT+)) during all conditions. A functional magnetic resonance imaging study using the same experimental protocols confirmed an MT+ localisation of this extra-striate response. The alpha-beta envelope power in the 'pursuit' condition showed a hemifield-dependent eye-position signal, such that the global minimum in the alpha-beta suppression recorded in extra-striate cortex was greatest when the eyes were at maximum contralateral eccentricity. The 'retinal motion' condition produced sustained alpha-beta power decreases for the duration of stimulus motion, while the 'pursuit + retinal motion' condition revealed a double-dip 'W' shaped alpha-beta envelope profile with the peak suppression contiguous with eye position when at opposing maximum eccentricity. These results suggest that MT+ receives retinal as well as extra-retinal signals from the pursuit system as part of the process that enables the visual system to compensate for retinal motion during eye movement. We speculate that the suppression of the alpha-beta rhythm reflects either the integration of an eye position-dependent signal or one that lags the peak velocity of the sinusoidally moving target.

The centre of the brain: topographical model of motor, cognitive, affective, and somatosensory functions of the basal ganglia

The basal ganglia have traditionally been viewed as motor processing nuclei; however, functional neuroimaging evidence has implicated these structures in more complex cognitive and affective processes that are fundamental for a range of human activities. Using quantitative meta-analysis methods we assessed the functional subdivisions of basal ganglia nuclei in relation to motor (body and eye movements), cognitive (working-memory and executive), affective (emotion and reward) and somatosensory functions in healthy participants. We document affective processes in the anterior parts of the caudate head with the most overlap within the left hemisphere. Cognitive processes showed the most widespread response, whereas motor processes occupied more central structures. On the basis of these demonstrated functional roles of the basal ganglia, we provide a new comprehensive topographical model of these nuclei and insight into how they are linked to a wide range of behaviors.

Covert tracking: a combined ERP and fixational eye movement study

Attention can be directed to particular spatial locations, or to objects that appear at anticipated points in time. While most work has focused on spatial or temporal attention in isolation, we investigated covert tracking of smoothly moving objects, which requires continuous coordination of both. We tested two propositions about the neural and cognitive basis of this operation: first that covert tracking is a right hemisphere function, and second that pre-motor components of the oculomotor system are responsible for driving covert spatial attention during tracking. We simultaneously recorded event related potentials (ERPs) and eye position while participants covertly tracked dots that moved leftward or rightward at 12 or 20°/s. ERPs were sensitive to the direction of target motion. Topographic development in the leftward motion was a mirror image of the rightward motion, suggesting that both hemispheres contribute equally to covert tracking. Small shifts in eye position were also lateralized according to the direction of target motion, implying covert activation of the oculomotor system. The data addresses two outstanding questions about the nature of visuospatial tracking. First, covert tracking is reliant upon a symmetrical frontoparietal attentional system, rather than being right lateralized. Second, this same system controls both pursuit eye movements and covert tracking.

Altered transfer of visual motion information to parietal association cortex in untreated first-episode psychosis: implications for pursuit eye tracking

Visual motion processing and its use for pursuit eye movement control represent a valuable model for studying the use of sensory input for action planning. In psychotic disorders, alterations of visual motion perception have been suggested to cause pursuit eye tracking deficits. We evaluated this system in functional neuroimaging studies of untreated first-episode schizophrenia (N=24), psychotic bipolar disorder patients (N=13) and healthy controls (N=20). During a passive visual motion processing task, both patient groups showed reduced activation in the posterior parietal projection fields of motion-sensitive extrastriate area V5, but not in V5 itself. This suggests reduced bottom-up transfer of visual motion information from extrastriate cortex to perceptual systems in parietal association cortex. During active pursuit, activation was enhanced in anterior intraparietal sulcus and insula in both patient groups, and in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsomedial thalamus in schizophrenia patients. This may result from increased demands on sensorimotor systems for pursuit control due to the limited availability of perceptual motion information about target speed and tracking error. Visual motion information transfer deficits to higher-level association cortex may contribute to well-established pursuit tracking abnormalities, and perhaps to a wider array of alterations in perception and action planning in psychotic disorders.

Neural processes of preparatory control for stop signal inhibition

This study investigated the preparatory control of motor inhibition and motor execution using a stop signal task (SST) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In the SST, a frequent "go" signal triggered a prepotent response and a less frequent "stop" signal prompted the inhibition of this response. Preparatory control of motor inhibition and execution in the stop signal trials were examined by contrasting brain activation between stop success and stop error trials during the fore-period, in which participants prepared to respond to go or to stop. Results from 91 healthy adults showed greater activation in the right prefrontal cortex and inferior parietal lobule during preparatory motor inhibition. Preparatory motor execution activated bilateral putamen, primary motor cortices, posterior cingulate cortex, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, and superior temporal/intraparietal sulci. Furthermore, the extents of these inhibition and execution activities were inversely correlated across subjects. On the basis of a median split of the stop signal reaction time (SSRT), subjects with short SSRT showed greater activity in the right orbital frontal cortex during preparatory inhibition. These new findings suggest that the go and stop processes interact prior to target presentation in the SST, in accord with recent computational models of stop signal inhibition.

Visual motion responses in the posterior cingulate sulcus: a comparison to V5/MT and MST

Motion processing regions apart from V5+/MT+ are still relatively poorly understood. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to perform a detailed functional analysis of the recently described cingulate sulcus visual area (CSv) in the dorsal posterior cingulate cortex. We used distinct types of visual motion stimuli to compare CSv with V5/MT and MST, including a visual pursuit paradigm. Both V5/MT and MST preferred 3D flow over 2D planar motion, responded less yet substantially to random motion, had a strong preference for contralateral versus ipsilateral stimulation, and responded nearly equally to contralateral and to full-field stimuli. In contrast, CSv had a pronounced preference to 2D planar motion over 3D flow, did not respond to random motion, had a weak and nonsignificant lateralization that was significantly smaller than that of MST, and strongly preferred full-field over contralateral stimuli. In addition, CSv had a better capability to integrate eye movements with retinal motion compared with V5/MT and MST. CSv thus differs from V5+/MT+ by its unique preference to full-field, coherent, and planar motion cues. These results place CSv in a good position to process visual cues related to self-induced motion, in particular those associated to eye or lateral head movements.

Position specificity of adaptation-related face aftereffects

It has been shown that prolonged exposure to a human face leads to shape-selective visual aftereffects. It seems that these face-specific aftereffects (FAEs) have multiple components, related to the adaptation of earlier and higher level processing of visual stimuli. The largest magnitude of FAE, using long-term adaptation periods, is usually observed at the retinotopic position of the preceding adaptor stimulus. However, FAE is also detected, to a smaller degree, at other retinal positions in a spatially invariant way and this component depends less on the adaptation duration. Several lines of evidences suggest that while the position-specific FAE involves lower level areas of the ventral processing stream, the position-invariant FAE depends on the activation of higher level face-processing areas and the fusiform gyrus in particular. In the present paper, we summarize the available behavioural, electrophysiological and neuroimaging results regarding the spatial selectivity of FAE and discuss their implications for the visual stability of object representations across saccadic eye movements.

Ocular motor abnormalities in Parkinsonian syndromes

Oculomotor abnormalities can be observed in all Parkinsonian syndromes (PS). Nevertheless, due to the considerable overlap of oculomotor pathology in Parkinsonism, oculomotor changes are not generally considered to contribute substantially to the differential diagnosis of PS. Here we review the characteristics of oculomotor disturbances in the major PS, we provide a survey of the current concepts of the underlying neural physiology of oculomotor control and a summary of the major recording techniques for eye movements. The main focus of this review is to outline the subtle differences between apparently similar oculomotor alterations in Parkinson's disease (PD) and atypical neurodegenerative PS that can contribute to the early differential diagnosis of these entities.

Dissociable frontal controls during visible and memory-guided eye-tracking of moving targets

When tracking visible or occluded moving targets, several frontal regions including the frontal eye fields (FEF), dorsal-lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) are involved in smooth pursuit eye movements (SPEM). To investigate how these areas play different roles in predicting future locations of moving targets, 12 healthy college students participated in a smooth pursuit task of visual and occluded targets. Their eye movements and brain responses measured by event-related functional MRI were simultaneously recorded. Our results show that different visual cues resulted in time discrepancies between physical and estimated pursuit time only when the moving dot was occluded. Visible phase velocity gain was higher that that of occlusion phase. We found bilateral FEF association with eye-movement whether moving targets are visible or occluded. However, the DLPFC and ACC showed increased activity when tracking and predicting locations of occluded moving targets, and were suppressed during smooth pursuit of visible targets. When visual cues were increasingly available, less activation in the DLPFC and the ACC was observed. In addition, there was a significant hemisphere effect in DLPFC, where right DLPFC showed significantly increased responses over left when pursuing occluded moving targets. Correlation results revealed that DLPFC, the right DLPFC in particular, communicates more with FEF during tracking of occluded moving targets (from memory). The ACC modulates FEF more during tracking of visible targets (likely related to visual attention). Our results suggest that DLPFC and ACC modulate FEF and cortical networks differentially during visible and memory-guided eye tracking of moving targets.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging activations of cortical eye fields during saccades, smooth pursuit, and optokinetic nystagmus

Saccades, smooth pursuit, and optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) are three basic eye movements in our ocular motor repertoire that enable us to explore the visual field. These eye movements are cortically controlled in different cortical eye fields, including the frontal eye fields (FEF) and parietal eye fields (PEF), as well as the motion-sensitive visual area MT+/V5. It is not known if this cortical control is organized in parallel cortico-cortical networks or in adjacent subregions of one system. Nor do we know where the specific eye fields are exactly located. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate these open questions about the FEF, PEF, and MT+/V5. Activations of the cortical network of eye-movement control were found in the frontal, parietal, and occipital cortex. While the activation pattern for OKN was not a combination of the patterns for saccades and smooth pursuit, the results suggest that cortical control of OKN occurs in a network parallel to that of saccades and smooth pursuit. Furthermore, a division of the FEF and the PEF into two parts was confirmed for the three ocular motor tasks, as well as a division within each of the three paradigms. MT+/V5 showed two partitions only for saccades, but not for smooth pursuit or OKN.