The Neural Control of Disconjugate Saccades

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To accurately look between near and far targets in 3-dimensional space, information about relative depth is sent from the visual cortex to the motor control centers in the brainstem, which in turn generate appropriate motor commands to move the eyes. Surprisingly, however, how the depth information supplied by the visual cortex is used to precisely aim each eye on a visual target is highly controversial. Accordingly, the objective of this project is to understand how the brain controls eye movements to accurately look between near and far objects. Our previous experiments provided compelling evidence that the brainstem saccadic generator, which was long considered a source of purely conjugate premotor drive, in fact provides temporally appropriate vergence information to drive rapid saccadic eye movements between near and far targets (i.e., disjunctive saccades). Indeed, the majority neurons dynamically encode the movement of an individual eye, and their time-varying discharges encode the drive required to produce accurate disconjugate saccades.