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Yao B, Rolfs M, McLaughlin C, Isenstein EL, Guillory SB, Grosman H, Kashy DA, Foss-Feig JH, Thakkar KN. Oculomotor corollary discharge signaling is related to repetitive behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder. J Vis 2021; 21:9. [PMID: 34351395 PMCID: PMC8354038 DOI: 10.1167/jov.21.8.9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/24/2020] [Accepted: 07/08/2021] [Indexed: 12/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Corollary discharge (CD) signals are "copies" of motor signals sent to sensory regions that allow animals to adjust sensory consequences of self-generated actions. Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by sensory and motor deficits, which may be underpinned by altered CD signaling. We evaluated oculomotor CD using the blanking task, which measures the influence of saccades on visual perception, in 30 children with ASD and 35 typically developing (TD) children. Participants were instructed to make a saccade to a visual target. Upon saccade initiation, the presaccadic target disappeared and reappeared to the left or right of the original position. Participants indicated the direction of the jump. With intact CD, participants can make accurate perceptual judgements. Otherwise, participants may use saccade landing site as a proxy of the presaccadic target and use it to inform perception. We used multilevel modeling to examine the influence of saccade landing site on trans-saccadic perceptual judgements. We found that, compared with TD participants, children with ASD were more sensitive to target displacement and less reliant on saccade landing site when spatial uncertainty of the post-saccadic target was high. This pattern was driven by ASD participants with less severe restricted and repetitive behaviors. These results suggest a relationship between altered CD signaling and core ASD symptoms.
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Affiliation(s)
- Beier Yao
- Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Martin Rolfs
- Department of Psychology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany
| | - Christopher McLaughlin
- Seaver Autism Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, USA
| | - Emily L Isenstein
- Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, USA
| | - Sylvia B Guillory
- Seaver Autism Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, USA
| | - Hannah Grosman
- Seaver Autism Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, USA
| | - Deborah A Kashy
- Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
| | - Jennifer H Foss-Feig
- Seaver Autism Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, NY, USA
| | - Katharine N Thakkar
- Department of Psychology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
- Division of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Michigan State University, Grand Rapids, MI, USA
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Bansal S, Joiner WM. Transsaccadic visual perception of foveal compared to peripheral environmental changes. J Vis 2021; 21:12. [PMID: 34160578 PMCID: PMC8237106 DOI: 10.1167/jov.21.6.12] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
The maintenance of stable visual perception across eye movements is hypothesized to be aided by extraretinal information (e.g., corollary discharge [CD]). Previous studies have focused on the benefits of this information for perception at the fovea. However, there is little information on the extent that CD benefits peripheral visual perception. Here we systematically examined the extent that CD supports the ability to perceive transsaccadic changes at the fovea compared to peripheral changes. Human subjects made saccades to targets positioned at different amplitudes (4° or 8°) and directions (rightward or upward). On each trial there was a reference point located either at (fovea) or 4° away (periphery) from the target. During the saccade the target and reference disappeared and, after a blank period, the reference reappeared at a shifted location. Subjects reported the perceived shift direction, and we determined the perceptual threshold for detection and estimate of the reference location. We also simulated the detection and location if subjects solely relied on the visual error of the shifted reference experienced after the saccade. The comparison of the reference location under these two conditions showed that overall the perceptual estimate was approximately 53% more accurate and 30% less variable than estimates based solely on visual information at the fovea. These values for peripheral shifts were consistently lower than that at the fovea: 34% more accurate and 9% less variable. Overall, the results suggest that CD information does support stable visual perception in the periphery, but is consistently less beneficial compared to the fovea.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sonia Bansal
- Department of Neuroscience, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.,Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Department of Psychiatry, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA.,
| | - Wilsaan M Joiner
- Department of Bioengineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.,Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.,Department of Neurology, University of California Davis, Davis, CA, USA.,
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Towards assessing extra-retinal uncertainty: A reply to M. Lisi (2020). Cortex 2020; 130:444-448. [PMID: 32641212 DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.05.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/22/2020] [Revised: 05/27/2020] [Accepted: 05/27/2020] [Indexed: 11/23/2022]
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Bansal S, Bray LCJ, Schwartz BL, Joiner WM. Transsaccadic Perception Deficits in Schizophrenia Reflect the Improper Internal Monitoring of Eye Movement Rather Than Abnormal Sensory Processing. BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROIMAGING 2017. [PMID: 29529412 DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.06.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/13/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Symptoms of psychosis in schizophrenia reflect disturbances in sense of agency-difficulty distinguishing internally from externally generated sensory and perceptual experiences. One theory attributes these anomalies to a disruption in corollary discharge (CD), an internal copy of generated motor commands used to distinguish self-movement-generated sensations from externally generated stimulation. METHODS We used a transsaccadic shift detection paradigm to examine possible deficits in CD and sense of agency based on the ability to perceive visual changes in 31 schizophrenia patients (SZPs) and 31 healthy control subjects. We derived perceptual measures based on manual responses indicating the transsaccadic target shift direction. We also developed a distance-from-unity-line measure to quantify use of CD versus purely sensory (visual) information in evaluating visual changes in the environment after an eye movement. RESULTS SZPs had higher perceptual thresholds in detecting shift of target location than healthy control subjects, regardless of movement direction or amplitude. Despite producing similar hypometric saccades, healthy control subjects overestimated target location, whereas SZPs relied more on the experienced visual error and consequently underestimated the target position. We show that in SZPs the postsaccadic judgment of the initial target location was largely aligned with the measure based only on visual error, suggesting a deficit in the use of CD. This CD deficit also correlated with positive schizophrenia symptoms and disturbances in sense of agency. CONCLUSIONS These results provide a novel approach in quantifying abnormal use of CD in SZPs and provide a framework to distinguish deficits in sensory processing versus defects in the internal CD-based monitoring of movement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sonia Bansal
- Department of Neuroscience, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; Mental Health Service Line, Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington, DC
| | | | - Barbara L Schwartz
- Mental Health Service Line, Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington, DC; Department of Psychiatry, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington, DC
| | - Wilsaan M Joiner
- Department of Neuroscience, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; Department of Bioengineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
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Rao HM, Mayo JP, Sommer MA. Circuits for presaccadic visual remapping. J Neurophysiol 2016; 116:2624-2636. [PMID: 27655962 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00182.2016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 27] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/01/2016] [Accepted: 09/14/2016] [Indexed: 01/08/2023] Open
Abstract
Saccadic eye movements rapidly displace the image of the world that is projected onto the retinas. In anticipation of each saccade, many neurons in the visual system shift their receptive fields. This presaccadic change in visual sensitivity, known as remapping, was first documented in the parietal cortex and has been studied in many other brain regions. Remapping requires information about upcoming saccades via corollary discharge. Analyses of neurons in a corollary discharge pathway that targets the frontal eye field (FEF) suggest that remapping may be assembled in the FEF's local microcircuitry. Complementary data from reversible inactivation, neural recording, and modeling studies provide evidence that remapping contributes to transsaccadic continuity of action and perception. Multiple forms of remapping have been reported in the FEF and other brain areas, however, and questions remain about the reasons for these differences. In this review of recent progress, we identify three hypotheses that may help to guide further investigations into the structure and function of circuits for remapping.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hrishikesh M Rao
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina;
| | - J Patrick Mayo
- Department of Neurobiology, Duke School of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; and
| | - Marc A Sommer
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.,Department of Neurobiology, Duke School of Medicine, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; and.,Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
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Cassanello CR, Ohl S, Rolfs M. Saccadic adaptation to a systematically varying disturbance. J Neurophysiol 2016; 116:336-50. [PMID: 27098027 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00206.2016] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/09/2016] [Accepted: 04/18/2016] [Indexed: 01/01/2023] Open
Abstract
Saccadic adaptation maintains the correct mapping between eye movements and their targets, yet the dynamics of saccadic gain changes in the presence of systematically varying disturbances has not been extensively studied. Here we assessed changes in the gain of saccade amplitudes induced by continuous and periodic postsaccadic visual feedback. Observers made saccades following a sequence of target steps either along the horizontal meridian (Two-way adaptation) or with unconstrained saccade directions (Global adaptation). An intrasaccadic step-following a sinusoidal variation as a function of the trial number (with 3 different frequencies tested in separate blocks)-consistently displaced the target along its vector. The oculomotor system responded to the resulting feedback error by modifying saccade amplitudes in a periodic fashion with similar frequency of variation but lagging the disturbance by a few tens of trials. This periodic response was superimposed on a drift toward stronger hypometria with similar asymptotes and decay rates across stimulus conditions. The magnitude of the periodic response decreased with increasing frequency and was smaller and more delayed for Global than Two-way adaptation. These results suggest that-in addition to the well-characterized return-to-baseline response observed in protocols using constant visual feedback-the oculomotor system attempts to minimize the feedback error by integrating its variation across trials. This process resembles a convolution with an internal response function, whose structure would be determined by coefficients of the learning model. Our protocol reveals this fast learning process in single short experimental sessions, qualifying it for the study of sensorimotor learning in health and disease.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carlos R Cassanello
- Department of Psychology and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Sven Ohl
- Department of Psychology and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Martin Rolfs
- Department of Psychology and Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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Jayet Bray LC, Bansal S, Joiner WM. Quantifying the spatial extent of the corollary discharge benefit to transsaccadic visual perception. J Neurophysiol 2015; 115:1132-45. [PMID: 26683070 DOI: 10.1152/jn.00657.2015] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/02/2015] [Accepted: 12/16/2015] [Indexed: 01/20/2023] Open
Abstract
Extraretinal information, such as corollary discharge (CD), is hypothesized to help compensate for saccade-induced visual input disruptions. However, support for this hypothesis is largely for one-dimensional transsaccadic visual changes, with little comprehensive information on the spatial characteristics. Here we systematically mapped the two-dimensional extent of this compensation by quantifying the insensitivity to different displacement metrics. Human subjects made saccades to targets positioned at different amplitudes (4° or 8°) and directions (rightward, oblique, or upward). After the saccade the initial target disappeared and, after a blank period, reappeared at a shifted location-a collinear, diagonal, or orthogonal displacement. Subjects reported the perceived shift direction, and we determined the displacement detection based on the perceptual judgments. The two-dimensional insensitivity fields resulting from the perceptual thresholds had spatial features similar to the saccadic eye movement variability: 1) scaled with movement amplitude, 2) oriented (less sensitive to the change) along the saccade vector, and 3) approximately constant in shape when normalized by movement amplitude. In addition, comparing the postsaccadic perceptual estimate of the presaccadic target location to that based solely on the postsaccade visual error showed that overall the perceptual estimate was approximately 50% more accurate and 35% less variable than estimates based solely on this visual information. However, this relationship was not uniform: The benefit of extraretinal information was observed largely for displacements with a component parallel to the saccade vector. These results suggest a graded use of extraretinal information when forming the postsaccadic perceptual evaluation of transsaccadic environmental changes.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Sonia Bansal
- Department of Neuroscience, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; and
| | - Wilsaan M Joiner
- Department of Bioengineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; Department of Neuroscience, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia; and Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, Sensorimotor Integration Laboratory, George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia
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