Oculomotor Control
In recent years a major focus of my research has been the visual control of eye movements, and in particular, three visual reflexes, all of which were first discovered in my laboratory and that we have postulated help to stabilize the eyes of the moving observer. We have shown that two of these reflexes have a number of special features that we have postulated would help the observer to maintain ocular stability during translational disturbances and so operate as backups to otolith-mediated vestibulo-ocular reflexes. The 3rd reflex would also operate in these same circumstances but we have reason to believe that this is a secondary property of this system, its primary purpose being to eliminate small (residual) binocular misalignments of the two eyes. One of the first two reflexes responds to planar motion and generates version (conjugate) eye movements that we postulate help stabilize gaze when the moving observer looks off to one side: ocular following. The other two reflexes both generate vergence eye movements that we postulate help the moving observer to maintain binocular alignment on objects that lie ahead: one responds to the radial patterns of optic flow (radial-flow vergence) and the other to the changes in binocular parallax (disparity vergence) that occur when the moving observer looks in the direction of heading. Lesions and electrophysiology suggest that, despite their short latency, all 3 reflexes are mediated by the medial superior temporal area of cortex (MST), and share many features in common leading us to suggest that they constitute a single family of reflexes.
| Staff | Title | |
|---|---|---|
Fred A. Miles |
Oculomotor Control Section Chief | fam@lsr.nei.nih.gov |
| Boris M. Sheliga | Staff Scientist | bms@lsr.nei.nih.gov |
