Neural Organization and Plasticity of the VOR

描述（由申请人提供）：前庭-眼反射是感知和控制空间定向的重要组成部分。它们对于视觉世界的感知以及视觉引导的行为也很重要，因为我们从一个不断变化的平台上观看世界，并且只有当视网膜上的图像相对稳定时，某些视觉机制才能发挥最佳作用。当我们进行日常活动时，视觉和前庭机制通过产生抵消我们头部运动的眼球运动来帮助稳定我们对感兴趣物体的注视。传统的方法强调处理旋转扰动的机制。然而，最近，已经清楚地发现存在一种单独的前庭眼反射（翻译VORs或TVORs），其代表了进化树中的遗传学最近获得，并且似乎与中央凹视觉、聚散眼球运动和立体视觉平行进化。这个建议是一个有竞争力的更新，以测试特定的假设，感觉信息是如何集中处理，以创建运动命令的TVOR。我们提出了新的行为实验，旨在了解有关TVOR的特定功能假设，以及神经生理学研究，以了解尚未未知的神经处理。电生理数据将密切伴随着理论建模，以描绘前庭眼计算的基础上的复杂的眼动反应的组织在翻译。虽然动机的基础科学问题，这一努力的结果将提供一个基础，了解临床缺陷相关的耳石系统病理学和耳石和前庭小脑功能的临床试验的发展。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Vestibulo-ocular reflexes are essential components in the perception and control of spatial orientation. They are also important for the perception of the visual world, as well as visually-guided behavior, since we view the world from a constantly shifting platform and certain visual mechanisms function optimally only if the images on the retina are relatively stable. As we go about our everyday activities, visual and vestibular mechanisms help to stabilize our gaze on objects of interest, by generating eye movements that offset our head movements. The traditional approach emphasized mechanisms that deal with rotational disturbances. More recently, however, it has become clear that a separate class of vestibulo-ocular reflexes exists (Translational VORs or TVORs) that represent a phylogenetically recent acquisition in the evolutionary tree and which appear to have evolved in parallel with foveal vision, vergence eye movements and stereopsis. This proposal is a competitive renewal to test specific hypotheses about how sensory information is centrally processed in order to create motor commands for the TVOR. We propose novel behavioral experiments aiming at understanding specific functional hypotheses about the TVOR, as well as neurophysiological studies to understand the yet unknown neural processing. Electrophysiological data will be closely accompanied with theoretical modeling in order to delineate the vestibulo-ocular computations that underlie the organization of the complex oculomotor responses during translation. Although motivated by fundamental basic science issues, the results of this effort will provide a basis for understanding clinical deficits related to otolith system pathology and for the development of clinical tests of otolith and vestibulocerebellar function.