EyeSee - Eye movements and vision: coupling between saccadic adaptation and visuo-spatial perception

正确执行有目的的行为对个人的日常活动至关重要。由于眼睛和整个身体的目标导向运动，我们感知，探索，采样和修改我们的环境，并可以与他人交流和沟通。当前项目旨在研究感知/动作耦合背后的行为过程和神经元机制。眼动系统是感觉运动转换的特权模型，因为它强烈地决定了人类在视觉中的表现，视觉是主要的感觉模态，特别是通过扫视来扫描我们的视觉环境。扫视自适应机制旨在通过在视觉-眼视系统受到生理或病理来源的持续扰动的情况下减少错误来保持扫视的准确性。因此，扫视适应被认为是保持有效的视觉探索。迄今为止，这两个合作伙伴申请人都为该领域提供了关键但独立的贡献。Pelisson（Partner 1）揭示了扫视适应对视觉导向的眼睛和手部运动的影响，并开始解开迄今为止在适应中被忽视的大脑皮层的作用。Lappe（合作伙伴2）已经揭示，在某些条件下，扫视适应可以导致我们对视觉目标位置的感知发生变化，当我们在扫视之前闪现时，甚至在静止的眼睛条件下（眼睛注视）。总之，这些研究结果表明，眼跳适应可能不仅发生通过运动的变化，但也通过感觉表征的变化，并可能旨在不仅更好地对准眼睛与目标，但也在保持视觉和眼表征之间的一致性。本项目的目的是破译的属性和眼跳适应的视觉感知的具体影响的解剖和电生理基板，通过计算建模和心理物理学在小脑患者的互补方法，在健康的受试者加上tDCS和功能磁共振成像，并在植入患者与iEEG耦合。这种原始的合作努力将提供关键的基础知识，通过眼动训练恢复视觉感知缺陷的临床应用潜力很大。目前的项目是基于里昂和明斯特合作伙伴之间的合作，建立在多年来对共同主题的深入研究和频繁的科学交流所创造的坚实基础之上。它的目标是提供一个实质性的一步，我们的知识的机制和大脑基板的眼适应及其后果的视觉空间感知，提供了一个关键的一步，为未来的转化研究，以临床康复的视觉注意缺陷。

Correct execution of purposeful behavior is essential for individuals in their daily activities. Thanks to goal-directed movements of eyes and whole-body, we perceive, explore, sample and modify our environment and can exchange and communicate with others. The current project aims at studying the behavioral processes and neuronal mechanisms behind the perception/action coupling. The oculomotor system is a privileged model of sensorimotor transformations because it strongly determines human performance in vision, the dominant sensory modality, notably through saccades to scan our visual environment. Saccadic adaptation mechanisms aim to maintain the accuracy of saccades by reducing errors in case of enduring perturbations to the visuo-oculomotor system, be it of physiological or pathological origin. Saccadic adaptation is thus thought to maintain efficient visual exploration. To date, both partner applicants have provided critical-but-separate contributions to the field. Pelisson (Partner 1) has revealed the effects of saccadic adaptation onto visually-directed eye and hand movements, and has started to unravel the so-far largely neglected role of the cerebral cortex in adaptation. Lappe (Partner 2) has revealed that saccadic adaptation can lead in certain conditions to changes in our perception of the location of a visual target when flashed just before a saccade, or even in stationary eye conditions (ocular fixation). Altogether, these findings indicate that saccades adaptation may not only occur through motoric changes, but also through changes in sensory representations, and may aim not only at better aligning the eye with the target, but also at maintaining consistency between visual and oculomotor representations. The present project aims at deciphering the properties and the anatomical and electrophysiological substrates of the specific effects of saccadic adaptation on visual perception, by means of complementarity approaches of computational modelling and psychophysics in cerebellar patients, in healthy subjects coupled with tDCS and fMRI, and in implanted patients coupled with iEEG. This original collaborative effort will provide crucial fundamental knowledge, with high potential for clinical applications on rehabilitation of visual perception deficits through eye movement training. The present project is based on a collaboration between the Lyon and Muenster partners built upon the solid foundation created by years of intense research on common topics and frequent scientific exchanges. Its ambition is to provide a substantial step forward into our knowledge of the mechanisms and brain substrates of oculomotor adaptation and of its consequences for visuo-spatial perception, providing a critical step for future translational research to clinics for rehabilitation of visuo-attentional deficits.