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The Journal of Neurophysiology Vol. 80 No. 2 August 1998, pp. 798-817
Copyright ©1998 by the American Physiological Society
Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, San Francisco, 94115; and Graduate Group in Bioengineering, University of California, San Francisco and University of California, Berkley, California 94720
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ABSTRACT |
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 Abstract
 Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
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Anderson, Russell W., Edward L. Keller, Neeraj J. Gandhi, and Sanjoy Das. Two-dimensional saccade-related population activity in superior colliculus in monkey. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 798-817, 1998. The two-dimensional distribution of population activity in the superior colliculus (SC) during saccadic eye movements in the monkey was estimated using radial basis functions. To make these ensemble activity estimates, cells in the deeper layers of the SC were recorded over much of the rostrocaudal (caudal to 3.8 mm from the rostral tip), mediolateral extent of this structure. The dynamic movement field of each cell was determined at 2-ms intervals around the time of saccades for a wide variety of horizontal and oblique movements. Collicular neurons were divided into partially overlapping dorsal and ventral cell layers on the basis of recorded depth in SC. The pattern of presaccadic activity was used as an additional discriminant to sort the cells in the two layers into separate burst (dorsal) and buildup (ventral) cell classes. Rostrocaudal and medioventral cell location on the colliculus was estimated from the optimal target vector for a cell's visual response rather than from the optimal motor vector. The former technique was more reliable for locating some buildup neurons because it produced locations that compared better with the locations suggested by electrical stimulation. From the movement field data and from the estimates of each cell's anatomic location, a similar algorithm was used to compute the two-dimensional population activity in the two layers of the SC during horizontal and oblique saccades. A subset of the sample of neurons, located near the horizontal meridian of the SC, first was used to compute one-dimensional dynamic population activity estimates for horizontal saccades to allow partial comparison to previous studies. Statistical analyses on the one-dimensional data were limited to saccades of 
20°. The analyses indicated that while there was a small rostrally directed shift in the center of gravity of the distributed activity in the buildup cell layer, there was little support for the theory of a systematic rostrally directed spread of the leading edge of the activity. The two-dimensional results extend the previous one-dimensional estimates of collicular activity during saccades. Discharge in the burst layer was invariant in size for all saccade vectors and symmetrically arranged about a center of gravity that did not move during saccades. The size of the active area in the buildup layer grew modestly with saccade amplitude, whereas the distribution of activity was skewed toward the rostral end of the SC for saccades larger than 10°. There was a small, but consistent shift in the center of gravity of the two-dimensional activity that was directed along the horizontal meridian (for horizontal movements) or an oblique meridian (for oblique movements) of the SC. However, the spread of activity during a saccade was as large or larger in the mediolateral direction as it was in the rostral direction. The results indicate that changes in activity occur in an extended zone on the SC, and in all directions but caudal, in the buildup layer during saccades and do not support the idea of a rostrally directed spread of activity as a dynamic control mechanism for saccades. Our results and those of previous investigators of collicular population activity may be limited by stationarity concerns in that the cells used to estimate population activity were recorded in several monkeys over an extended period of time to obtain a sufficient spatial sample.
The superior colliculus (SC) is a crucial participant in the neural control of saccadic eye movements (see review by Sparks and Hartwich-Young 1989 Surgical and physiological procedures
Data presented in this report have been pooled from two Macaca mulatta and one M. fasicularis male, adolescent monkeys. All experimental protocols were approved by the Institute Animal Care and Use Committee at the California Pacific Medical Center and complied with the guidelines of the Public Health Service policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. The animals were prepared for the experiments in a single surgery under aseptic conditions. Anesthesia was induced with an intramuscular injection of ketamine (15 mg/kg) and acepromazine (0.1 mg/kg). The monkeys then were intubated and anesthetized with isoflurane for the duration of the surgical procedure. Heart rate, respiratory rate, pulse oximeter, and body temperature were monitored throughout the procedure. The following devices were implanted in the animal during the surgery: 1) a coil of Teflon-coated wire under the conjunctiva of one eye using the method of Judge et al. (1980) Behavioral paradigms
The experimental paradigm used in the present experiment was a variation of a delayed saccade protocol. The monkey was required initially to fixate a stationary visual target. After a random interval (selected uniformly from a continuum over 500-900 ms), a second target spot appeared at an eccentric position while the fixation target remained on for an additional random interval (400-800 ms, also from a continuum). After this second interval, the fixation target went off, which was the cue to the animal that it should now saccade to the location of the eccentric target. The second target was extinguished before the monkey could make a saccade to its location. We turned off the target to avoid any possible visual contribution to the saccadic response of units during large saccades, which could take >100 ms to complete. The animal was rewarded for making accurate saccades to the former target location [a window size of ±1° ± 0.1 times the magnitude of the target displacement was placed around the location of the required saccade]. The lack of a visual target at the end of the saccades meant that corrective saccades were only very rarely observed. The fixation point was located at the straight-ahead position when the upcoming target displacement was to be <20° in amplitude. For target steps >20°, the fixation point was offset from straight ahead to prevent restrictions due to the oculomotor range.
Data analysis
The eye movement records initially were processed by a computer program to mark the beginning and end points of the saccades using eye velocity and acceleration criteria (Keller and Edelman 1994 Estimation of dynamic movement fields and population activity
Movement field plots were constructed from the spike density data aligned on saccade end. Alignment on the end of each movement in the data set for individual cells is required to construct population activity estimates to test the hypothesis that a spread of activity is the dynamical process controlling the end of saccades.
Cell classification
As the first step in the data analysis, we wanted to place each cell into one of the three classes, buildup neurons, burst neurons or fixation neurons, using the same criteria as those used by Munoz and Wurtz (1995a)
General two-dimensional field properties
of deeper layer cells
Figure 4 shows examples of two-dimensional movement field estimations obtained for two cells with our radial basis function algorithm at three different time frames. The data used to compute the three, movement field frames on the left are from a cell recorded at a depth of 1.4 mm from the dorsal surface of the colliculus. This cell was classified as a burst neuron by our criteria. At the time of its peak discharge (middle frame), the movement field estimate shows a closed-field shape with a peak discharge for saccades ~7.5° in amplitude and nearly horizontal in direction. At the other time instants (100 ms before the time of peak discharge in the upper frame and at saccade end in the lower) the cell shows low-level activity located in the same restricted region of movement field space as that at the time of peak discharge.
Estimating population activity in the SC in space and time
In this section, we present the results of our computations showing the population activity in the two layers of collicular cells (based on our separation criteria) for saccades of particular sizes and directions. Population estimates are generated from individual movement fields for neurons spatially sampled across the SC. The crucial first step in generating these estimates is to estimate the anatomic location on the collicular surface of each cell in the sample.
DETERMINING THE ANATOMIC LOCATION OF RECORDED CELLS.
Past studies of collicular population activity have located cells on the colliculus based on the saccade vector that yields the peak or largest mean saccade-related discharge (Munoz and Wurtz 1995b
ONE-DIMENSIONAL POPULATION ANALYSIS.
Although the primary goal of the present investigation was to produce two-dimensional motor maps of the colliculus, we first present the results of a one-dimensional analysis for horizontal saccades so that a direct comparison can be made to the analysis of Munoz and Wurtz (1995b)
TWO-DIMENSIONAL ESTIMATES OF COLLICULAR POPULATION ACTIVITY.
We now present data showing the two-dimensional distribution of activity in the two layers of the colliculus during saccades as estimated by our radial basis function algorithm. In the following estimates of and computations on two-dimensional activity, we included all cells, even those cells previously classified as fixation neurons, in the analysis precisely because we could not determine any statistical difference in the pattern of discharge of rostral "buildup" neurons and "fixation" neurons. We did not normalize the activity of any of the cell groups before computing the distributed activity maps. Figure 9 shows the population activity in the contralateral colliculus for a 20° horizontal saccade. Figure 9, top, shows the distribution of activity in the burst cell layer at three different time frames (100 ms before saccade onset, saccade onset, and saccade end). Figure 9, bottom, shows the activity in the buildup layer at the same three times.
ROSTROCAUDAL AND MEDIOLATERAL SECTIONS THROUGH THE ACTIVITY SURFACES.
To show the spatial details of the population activities in the colliculus, we took sections thorough the surface estimation shown in Fig. 9 for a 20° horizontal saccade at movement start and end. Figure 12A shows a section made along the horizontal meridian from rostral to caudal with the bust layer activity on top and the buildup layer activity below. The asymmetric distribution of activity in the buildup layer, which is broadly skewed toward the rostral colliculus, is seen clearly (Fig. 12A, bottom section). The rapid collapse of caudal activity in the buildup layer, which shifts the center of mass of the activity in this layer toward the rostral limit of the SC by saccade end, is also noticeable. However, it is difficult to detect any change in the activity profile in the region located more rostral than ~1.7 mm. Therefore the primary dynamic event in the buildup layer, as it also is in the burst layer, is the decline of activity at the locus of peak discharge at onset.
QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENTS ON THE ACTIVITY SURFACES FOR DIFFERENT SACCADE VECTORS.
Figure 13 shows the computed vector movements of the center of mass of activity in the two collicular layers for horizontal saccades with amplitudes from 2.5 to 25° (lower set of arrows in each section) and for 45° up oblique saccades over the same range of amplitudes (upper set of arrows), except for the burst layer (Fig. 13, top), where computations were made over the amplitude range from 2.5 to 15°. Each arrow plotted on the collicular surface represents the magnitude and direction of the movement of the center of mass of the distributed activity in that layer during a saccade. The tail of each arrow is placed at the center of mass at saccade onset and the tip of each is at the center at saccade end. There is little or no systematic movement of the center in the burst layer for any of the illustrated saccades. In the buildup layer, the largest horizontal saccades (25, 20, and 15°) are associated with a rostrally directed movement of the center, but the shift was only ~0.25 mm in distance and was the same size for the three movement amplitudes. Larger oblique saccades also are accompanied by shift in the center of mass of activity of similar distance, and the movement vector is tilted to be aligned roughly with the +45° oblique meridian on the colliculus.
"Moving wave" hypothesis
The major purpose of our two-dimensional analysis of population activity in the superior colliculus was to test the hypothesis that a rostral spread of activity in the buildup cell layer occurs during saccadic eye movements and is used to control the end of these movements (Munoz and Wurtz 1995b Metrics obtained from the two-dimensional analyses
The two-dimension analyses provide information previously not available from one-dimensional work on horizontal saccades. The activity profiles in the burst layer are nearly symmetrical (when plotted in collicular coordinates) for all sizes and directions of saccades studied within the limits of our data. These two-dimensional plots (Figs. 9-11) and the computations given in Fig. 14 show that McIlwain's point image hypothesis (1976), which states that the active area in the superficial layers of the SC for a point visual stimulus presented at any eccentricity is constant, is also true for the "movement image" in the burst layer. The equal areas of activation also confirm the two-dimensional estimates of Ottes et al. (1986) Dynamic control theories of collicular function
We believe that the dynamic population estimates of collicular activity that we obtained in the present study are compatible with the hypothesis that tonic presaccadic activity of most rostral, ventral neurons in the SC is suppressed before saccade onset for large saccades. The depth of the suppression and its caudal extent both increase with saccade size. Munoz and Wurtz (1995b) Classification of cell type
Although our classification of cell types in the deeper layers of the colliculus agrees qualitatively with the scheme proposed by Munoz and Wurtz (1995a) Location of cells on the colliculus
There are several ways that one might use to locate recorded cells on the colliculus. Investigators in the past have used metrics based on the motor-related discharge (the movement field) of cells to find a "best" amplitude and direction for each cell (Munoz and Wurtz 1995b
INTRODUCTION
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
), but its precise role in the generation of saccades remains controversial. It is generally agreed that the SC exerts its control function through population coding in which large ensembles of neurons in its deeper layers are active for every saccade. The location of the most intense activity is dependent on the size and direction of the movement in a topologically organized fashion over the surface of the SC, but precisely what the population activity codes remains unclear. According to one theory, the saccadic movement is based on a vector summation mechanism in which each member of the active population of collicular neurons contributes a minivector of movement control according to its topographical location on the collicular map (Van Gisbergen et al. 1987). In another view, the saccadic vector is determined by an averaging process that computes the center of mass of the active population (Lee et al. 1988; Van Opstal and Van Gisbergen 1989). In each of these hypotheses, the SC is viewed as providing the static goal (desired eye displacement), and the dynamics of the control process are carried out downstream in a local feedback network that continuously compares the desired eye displacement, as specified by the SC population code, to the actual current eye displacement during a saccade provided by an efferent (local) feedback mechanism (Robinson 1975).
; Das et al. 1995; Keller and Edelman 1994; Lee et al. 1988; Munoz et al. 1991a,b; Waitzman et al. 1991). A novel dynamic hypothesis supposing a rostrally spreading wave of activity on the SC during saccades also has been proposed (Munoz and Wurtz 1995b; Optican 1995; Wurtz 1996). The latter theory suggests that three functionally distinct types of neurons exist in the deeper layers of the SC: dorsally located burst neurons, more ventrally placed buildup neurons, and rostrally situated fixation neurons. Before saccade onset, a spatially extensive population of buildup cells begins to discharge at low frequency while fixation cells start to decrease their discharge. Shortly before saccade onset, burst neurons in a circumscribed region centered on the site of maximal activity in the buildup cell population begin a high-frequency burst of discharge that approximately coincides with saccade onset. As the movement proceeds, the buildup cells receive feedback about the ongoing change in eye position in the form of instantaneous eye velocity. The network of active buildup cells performs a spatial integration on the velocity signal, a process that generates a rostrally directed spread of activity in the buildup cell layer. The active burst cell population remains fixed at its initial collicular location and declines in firing rate as the spread of activity moves the center of activity in the buildup layer in a rostral direction. Finally, when the spread of activity in buildup cells reaches the rostral limit of the SC, it reactivates fixation neurons, a mechanism which ends the saccade. A somewhat similar concept had been proposed previously based on cellular recordings in the cat superior colliculus (Munoz et al. 1991b).
; Munoz et al. 1991a,b) have been limited to estimating population activity along the central meridian of the colliculus during horizontal saccades. In one exception, Ottes et al. (1986) presented a two-dimensional estimate of the shape and extent of the population activity for burst cells. Their estimate was based on an amplitude series (at best direction) and a direction series (at best amplitude) through the movement fields of cells at a limited set of locations on the collicular map. Their data had the further limitation that the mean firing rate during a 100-ms time bin centered on the saccade onset was the measure of activity and hence cannot be used to test dynamic theories of saccadic control. A comprehensive examination of the spreading activity theory requires knowledge of the population activity over the entire colliculus because the motor map in this structure is known to represent all contralateral saccades including up and down oblique movements (Robinson 1972). Two-dimensional estimations are needed to examine the generality of the hypothesis when extended to oblique movements (Optican 1995). They also are needed to test an alternative hypothesis in which the activity of buildup neurons in a broad region surrounding the center of activity is inhibited before saccade onset and then comes back on near the end of the saccade but without a rostrally directed order of reactivation (Gandhi et al. 1994). In the latter theory, it is the decline of high-level activity at the center of the active region as the saccade progresses that codes movement dynamics.
; Ottes et al. 1986). We first characterized the movement fields of individual neurons positioned as evenly as possible over the collicular surface. The movement field estimates for individual cells at closely spaced intervals of time then were used to compute the evolution of population activity on the colliculus for each of the cell types as the saccade progressed.
) did not converge for many cells, particularly those of the buildup class. Therefore we developed a new algorithm using radial basis functions (Moody and Darken 1989) that was computationally tractable and provided function independent estimations of the movement fields of all neurons. The details of the methodology for the application of this algorithm are described in a separate paper (Anderson et al. 1998). The present paper concentrates on applying the algorithm to the problem of specifying the evolution of the population activity in the SC during both horizontal and oblique saccades.
METHODS
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
; 2) a stainless steel recording chamber placed stereotactically on the skull, slanted posteriorly at an angle of 38° in the sagittal plane and aligned on the SC. This angle ensured that recording penetrations were made approximately perpendicular to the surface of the SC. And 3) two stainless steel bars transversely above the skull anterior to the recording chamber for use as a head restraint device. After surgery, monkeys recovered rapidly from the gas anesthesia and then were returned to their home cage. The following day they received an injection of an analgesic agent (buprenex, 0.1 mg/kg im). They were allowed to recover completely from the effects of the surgery before behavioral training was begun.
). Visual targets (bright spots of light of 1/4° visual angle) were back-projected on a translucent tangent screen located at a distance of 35 cm from the animal's eyes with an oscilloscope projection system (Crandall and Keller 1985). The tangent screen was illuminated with a dim homogenous background (0.1 cd/cm2) and the visual display subtended ±45° of visual angle along both the horizontal and vertical axes. The position of the targets, the behavioral paradigms, and the storage of data were controlled by a single, real-time program running on a PC computer. Horizontal and vertical eye velocity signals were produced by analog differentiation of the corresponding eye position record (cutoff frequency of 170 Hz). Eye position, eye velocity, and target position signals were digitized at 1 kHz and stored to disk.
). Each record was examined by a human operator and improperly marked times were corrected by hand. Raw neural discharge was converted to spike density signals by convolving the spike trains with a Gaussian waveform (
= 4 ms) (Richmond et al. 1987) to produce smooth continuous estimates of unit activity. Neural data then were aligned alternatively on the onset of the visual target, saccade onset or saccade end.
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FIG. 1.
Estimation of dynamic movement fields of collicular neurons using a radial basis function algorithm. A: database for cell ba2201. 
, end point for 1 saccade in the total set (n = 171). Data shown in Cartesian coordinates with the abscissa being the horizontal component (+ is to right) and the ordinate the vertical coordinate (+ is up) of the movements. All saccades started near the fixation point shown as a cross at coordinate (0,0). 
, convex hull for the set of saccades. Note the limited amount of data in the top portion of the field. B: data were preprocessed by triangulation. Where there were many closely spaced samples, the data were replaced by a single point at the apex of a computed triangle. Where the data were scarce, internal points were placed at the center of triangles above a threshold value of area (50° squared in this example). C: computed movement field of the neuron at a single time point (40 ms before the end of all saccades in the set) shown as a contour plot. Contour lines are 150, 125, 100, 75, 50, and 25 spikes/s. Highest discharge is for nearly horizontal saccade of amplitude 40°. Because saccades of 40° amplitude were the largest included in the data for this cell, the lefthand boundary of its field could not be determined (i.e., the cell was of open-field type).
). The smoothing parameter for the spline fits was fixed at 0.85. These analyses were conducted to allow direct comparison to previously published one-dimensional work.
25°. This limitation arises for the population estimates because one must have movement field estimates for all cells in the population out to saccades at least as large as the modeled saccade. Thus the cell with the smallest, maximum eccentricity movement in its database determines the limit of the saccadic amplitude that can be modeled for population discharge. In other words, we can fit individual movement field estimates out to the limit of each cell's data but the population estimates are only valid for saccades smaller than the movement field data for the cell with the smallest extent of data (26° in our sample of cells). The center of mass (gravity) of the inverse fits was used also to quantify some of the dynamical properties of the population activity in the colliculus. The center of mass was defined as that point in two-dimensional collicular space on which the spatial distribution of discharge (the population activity) would balance if the units of discharge were equivalent to mass.
RESULTS
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
, so that we could compare our two-dimensional results to their one-dimensional experiments. We had statistical difficulty with the primary criterion used by these authors to divide cells outside the rostral pole of the SC (arbitrary defined as the most rostral 0.72 mm of colliculus) into buildup or burst neurons. They classified cells located caudal to the rostral pole that discharged at a rate >30 spikes/s during the 100-ms period of time ending 100 ms before saccadic onset (for movements of optimal size and direction in a delayed-saccade paradigm) as buildup neurons while those with discharge below this level as burst neurons. In Fig. 2, we plot the discharge for averaged optimal movements aligned on saccade onset for all 93 potential burst or buildup neurons from our sample. As the figure illustrates, collicular cells display a continuum of behavior with respect to the arbitrary criterion of 30 spikes/s for presaccadic discharge (Fig. 2B). Munoz and Wurtz (1995a) cited two additional criteria that they believed also served to separate cells in the deeper collicular layers into dynamically distinct classes (i.e., burst or buildup neurons): depth from the dorsal surface of the colliculus and the spatial extent of the movement field (i.e., whether the cell displayed closed- or open-field discharge characteristics). In our experience, these latter two criteria served as more definitive discriminates of cell type. We first placed cells recorded above a depth of 1.4 mm (and which had a saccade-related burst of activity) into the burst neuron class and those recorded below a depth of 1.6 mm into the buildup neuron classification. The total number of cells classified into the two types by depth alone was 72. For the remaining 21 cells located between 1.4 and 1.6 mm in depth, we applied the 30 spikes/s criterion to determine classification. On some penetrations, cells were recorded at the border of the superficial layers and the intermediate layers with a sustained visual response that extended in time through the saccade. Because it was not possible to classify these cells as saccade related with our paradigm, they were dropped from further consideration, i.e., a cell in the region >1.4 mm had to have a clear saccade-related burst to be included in the present analysis.
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FIG. 2.
Presaccadic discharge of neurons recorded in the deeper layers of the superior colliculus. A: discharge for 93 cells in our sample recorded at various depths and positions on the superior colliculus (SC). Each trace shows the activity of 1 cell during the time period from 150 ms before to 100 ms after movement onset averaged for the 4 saccade trials in each cell's database for which the largest discharge occurred. Saccade onset is at 0 on this time scale. B: blowup of the inset in A. Time scale now represents the 50-ms period ending 100 ms before saccade onset. - - -, criterion level of 30 spikes/s used by Munoz and Wurtz (1995a) to separate cells into burst or buildup classes.
classified cells located in the rostral 0.72 mm of the buildup layer in the SC and those that paused for saccades, as fixation neurons. Neurons located more caudal but in the same layer of the SC were classified as buildup neurons. In our sample, deeper cells recorded in the rostral colliculus appeared to form a continuum with respect to their discharge properties between fixation and buildup neurons. Examples of this continuum in behavior are shown in Fig. 3. The cell shown on the left was recorded very rostral in the SC and paused for almost all saccades. However, when a saccade of 1.5 and ~10° up was made, the cell discharged a weak burst of activity (Fig. 3, top). But even for a slightly larger movement of 3°, the cell showed a dip in its activity for the movement (not shown). For 20° saccades, the cell was inhibited completely (Fig. 3, bottom). On the basis of its preferred saccade vector, this cell would be placed rostral to the 0.72 mm dividing line and would be classified as a fixation neuron by the Munoz and Wurtz criterion. However, the cells shown in Fig. 3, right and middle, have similar behavior. Each has a preferred saccadic vector for which the cell bursts but then is inhibited for larger saccades in the same direction. The middle cell has a preferred magnitude of 4°, whereas the cell on the right prefers saccades of 7° (placing both cells more caudal than the Munoz and Wurtz dividing meridian on the SC). These cells would be called buildup neurons by their criterion. However, it seems clear that both types have similar levels of early presaccadic discharge but then show a decline in their activity and finally an inhibition in activity for all contralateral saccades larger than a certain size. The saccade size limit required to produce the down trend and the pause in activity becomes progressively smaller as the recording location is moved more rostral on the SC. For saccades smaller than its limit, a particular cell shows an accelerating trend in discharge and a burst (for some cells very weak) of activity during the saccade. We also recorded another cell in which pauses occurred for saccades of 
1°, but we did not have a sufficient number of saccades of one-half or one-quarter degree in amplitude to be able to determine if these cells might not have shown a burst for these smaller movements. In two cases, we found cells with bursts in a few individual trials for such smaller movements, an observation that also supports the view that there may be a continuum of behavior between buildup and fixation cells. Nevertheless to be able to compare our data in one-dimensional analyses to that of Munoz and Wurtz, we classified all cells for which we could show an acceleration of discharge and a burst (however weak) for saccades of 1° as buildup neurons. Those cells that still showed a deceleration and a pause (however weak) for 1° saccades were classified as fixation neurons. For the two-dimensional analyses, we treat fixation neurons as the most rostral extension of the buildup neuron layer and do not distinguish between the two types.
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FIG. 3.
Continuum of behavior in rostral, deep collicular cells. Each column of plots shows the activity of an individual cell. Top: average spike density for the cell for saccades of nearly optimal vector for that cell. Bottom: average density for a 20° saccade in the same direction as the optimal vector. Average density traces computed from 4 movements for all panels (except top left where only 2 saccades small enough and in the right direction were available to compute the average). Shaded vertical bar in each plot shows the average time duration of the saccadic eye movements associated with the discharge behavior in each plot. Both eye movements and neural discharge aligned on saccade onset (at 0 on each abscissa). Left: cell located in the rostral 0.5 mm of the colliculus. Middle: cell located at a region on the colliculus preferring 4° movements. Right: cell located at a region on the colliculus preferring 7° movements. Spike density and time calibrations (bottom left) apply to all panels.
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FIG. 4.
Example movement fields for a burst neuron (left, cell hm0501) and a buildup neuron (right, cell hm1201) for 3 different time instants obtained with the radial basis function algorithm. All times are given with respect to the end for all saccades. Middle: cell at the time of its peak discharge. Top: 100 ms before time of peak discharge. Bottom: at saccade end. Movement fields are plotted in horizontal (x) and vertical (y) eye movement coordinates with right and up being positive. Both cells were recorded in the left SC.
x) hemifields at earlier times (upper frame). It shows resumed activity for large contralateral saccades at times close to the end of saccades (lower frame). It is the spatial asymmetries and temporal order of this low-level activity that forms the basis of the Munoz and Wurtz (1995b) theory. Clearly, bivariate Gaussian functions would have difficulty capturing simultaneously the essence of the peak discharge and the low-level activity. Indeed, for this cell, neither Gaussian or a log-Gaussian functions could be made to converge for the cell's data with a standard nonlinear optimization algorithm (Marquard 1963). Because we wanted to use the same estimation technique for all cells, we chose a radial basis function algorithm, which always converged and produced smooth estimates for all cells.
40° could be obtained with our algorithm, while Gaussian models were found not to converge. The cell shows significant early discharge for large horizontal saccades. At a later time instant (Fig. 5, B and F) the peak for 40° saccades has subsided partially, and a broad region of elevated activity exists. In this same time frame a clear secondary peak of activity (Fig. 5, 
) may be seen for nearly horizontal saccades at smaller amplitudes (~7° in amplitude). The appearance of this peak is particularly clear in the data aligned on saccade end. The temporal time courses of activity aligned on the end of saccades for two selected movement sizes is shown in Fig. 5D and for activity aligned on saccade start in Fig. 5H. This plot was computed from temporal averages of actual spike density data, not the radial basis function estimates, for five selected saccades for each curve. The solid curves in each panel show the average for movements closest to the saccade vector 39° at 170°. The dashed curves show the average for movements closest to the saccade vector 7° at 170°.
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FIG. 5.
Example of a buildup cell (ba2201) with extreme open-field characteristics. All 2-dimensional movement-field estimates shown on the left were obtained from data aligned on saccade end. Estimates shown on the right are from data aligned on saccade start. A: time frame ( 100 ms with respect to end for all saccades) near time of maximum discharge for the cell. B: at 40 ms before the end of saccades the cell shows a decline in activity for large saccades but a prominent peak for smaller (~7°) saccades. C: activity for saccades at the time of saccade end. Peak at the 7° locus has declined rapidly while that for large saccades is still decaying more slowly. Same coordinate conventions as previous figure. This cell was recorded in the right SC. D: temporal characteristics of the cell's discharge. Solid curve shows the average spike density as a function of time with respect to saccade end computed from actual data for the 5 saccades in the database closest to the saccade vector 39° at 170°. Lower solid curve shows the mean time course of the radial eye position change for these saccades (arbitrary amplitude scale). Dashed curve shows the average spike density for the 5 saccades closest to the saccade vector 7° at 170°. Lower dashed curve shows the mean time course of the radial eye position for these 5 saccades. The dashed vertical lines show the times represented in A-C above. and , corresponding positions and times for the discharges in A-D. E: time frame 12 ms before saccade start for all saccades. F: at saccade start. G: at a time 70 ms after saccade start. H: same format as subplot D but now for data aligned on saccade start.
theory. We recorded from seven buildup cells with similar complex spatio-temporal patterns in their movement fields.
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TABLE 1.
Variances of the discharge profile
; Ottes et al. 1986). This method seems justified for burst neurons that have clear and relatively narrow peaks in their movement fields but is more arbitrary for buildup neurons, which often have weak bursts and broadly tuned movement fields in both movement space and time (e.g., the cell shown in Fig. 5). Furthermore, as we mentioned above, the optimal saccade vector for some buildup neurons did not correspond well to that observed in burst neurons or to the visual responses recorded in other cells on the same penetration. Therefore, we wondered if the use of the center of a cell's visual field response to determine their location on the colliculus might not provide a more consistent method of locating cells than methods based on measurements on their movement field.
to locate their cells. The second measure used the eye movement vector associated with peak activity from the radial basis function surface fit. For each neuron, the optimal vectors determined from the three measurements then were converted into three sets of candidate locations on the SC from the formulae provided by Ottes et al. (1986).
), it is logical to assume that stimulation provides the most accurate estimate of the location of the microelectrode. However, stimulation data were not available for all cells. Hence, a comparison of the differences in the placement of the cells using the three methods described earlier, with respect to the stimulation site, was done for 15 buildup neurons. Our results showed that the visual field measurements provided the closest correspondence to the locations determined by stimulation. The mean difference between locations determined by the visual field method and the that from electrical stimulation was 0.51 mm (range 0.19-1.09). The mean difference for the locations based on the peaks of the movement field from the radial basis function fits and from the raw data were 1.02 mm (range 0.09-2.52) and 0.76 mm (range 0.26-2.09), respectively. The differences between the visual field method and either method of movement field measurement were both significant (1-tailed t-tests; P < 0.01). The differences between the two movement field methods were not significant (t-test; P > 0.3). The same analysis was repeated for seven burst neurons. None of the differences in method of cell location were significantly different. The results of these analyses confirm our suggestion that for some buildup neurons larger errors can result from placing the cell based on movement field measurements than on visual field measurements.
) toward the rostral pole. To test this notion, we computed the rostrocaudal component of the difference between the placements determined by the visual fields and those determined by the movement field peaks (from the raw data) for the same 15 buildup cells considered earlier. In this computation, a negative sign indicates that placement derived from the use of the visual field was more rostral than that derived from the use of a movement field metric. For the 15 cells the results were negative in 7 and positive in 7, and there was no rostrocaudal shift for 1 cell. Thus the use of a visual field metric did not introduce a systematic bias in the location of cells on the map. Therefore we adopted the latter method in the present analysis.
45° for the buildup layer.
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FIG. 6.
Locations of the recorded cells ( ) and reflected cells (+) plotted on the collicular motor map. To locate the cells, horizontal and vertical coordinates of the peak of each cell's visual field were converted to collicular coordinates using the formulae of Ottes et al. (1986). See text for details. Left: estimated anatomic location on the collicular map for burst cells. Right: estimated anatomic location for buildup cells. In each, the abscissa (u) shows the rostral (0) to caudal (4) axis of a colliculus in mm. The ordinate (v) shows the medial (3) to lateral (3) axis also in millimeters. Curvilinear coordinate system plotted on the collicular surface shows location in polar coordinates of the visual field (eccentricity marked in degrees along the bottom edge and direction in degrees along the caudal edge). Positive numbers signify up directions.
. Next, we perform two statistical tests to determine whether the population activity in the buildup layer spreads to rostral SC sites in a systematic manner or rather that rostral neurons are reactivated randomly.
for saccades of 50° amplitude, but our population data are limited to examining movements only 20-25° in amplitude as already noted.
), so they are included in the panels on the right with the latter cells. The smoothed population estimates for burst and buildup neurons (continuous trace in each subplot) were obtained by a cubic spline fits. The short dashed lines show the mean value of the discharge data for fixation neurons.
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FIG. 7.
One-dimensional spatial distribution of activity along the horizontal meridian of one superior colliculus for a 20°, contralateral, horizontal saccade. Left: activity in the burst neuron layer (n = 25 cells). Right: activity in the buildup layer (n = 51 cells) and for fixation cells (n = 9). , normalized activity of 1 burst or buildup neuron at 5 different time frames around the time of the saccade. ×, normalized activity of 1 fixation neuron. See text for methods of normalization. For burst and buildup neurons, the location of each cell along the horizontal meridian of the SC (the abscissa) was determined from the amplitude of its optimal visual response converted to millimeters from the rostral limit of the SC as explained in the text. Fixation neurons were placed at random within the narrow region from the rostral limit to 0.5 mm more caudal. , spline fits for each group of cells (for burst and buildup cells). - - -, mean level of activity in the fixation cells. 
, computed position of the center of mass of the distributed activity in each time frame.
. Note that the apparent difference in the magnitude of the activity in these most rostral cells and rostral buildup neurons is probably due to the different method of normalization used on the activity in these two groups of cells. More attention should be paid to the similar temporal dynamics in the discharge of two groups of cells than in their normalized amplitudes.
; Walpole and Myers 1989), a nonparametric significance measure that looks for proof of sequential changes in the dependent variable (reactivation time, see further) measured over a range of the independent variable (caudal to rostral location on the SC), to test for sequential activation during 20° saccades. Examination of Fig. 7 (right) shows that all buildup neurons caudal to ~1.7 mm were maximally active by onset of 20° saccades. Thus a spread of activity, if it occurs, must involve all buildup and fixation neurons (total of 34 in our sample) rostral of this location. The time of reactivation, defined as the period of time from 25 ms before saccade onset to 14 ms after saccade end when a cell reached one-half of the maximum level it attained over the same time range, was computed and aligned with respect to saccade end. The one-half level of maximal activation, not the peak activity during the saccade, was used because many neurons had not reached their maximal level even by 14 ms after saccade end, although they did return to presaccadic activation levels. The null hypothesis of the runs test is that the reactivation times, sorted according to cell location from caudal to rostral, are not different from a random sequence. We could not reject this hypothesis with our data (P > 0.1), suggesting that the reactivation of neurons in the rostral buildup layer may be random instead of sequential as required by a strict interpretation of the Munoz and Wurtz (1995b) theory.
; Kooperberg et al. 1995) to compute the 95% confidence levels for the spline fits. One-half of the neurons located rostral to the 1.7-mm limit were selected at random from the original data (n = 34). The data and the locations for the reduced data set were used to recompute the spline curves at each of the five time epochs. This procedure was carried out repetitively for 200 cycles. The five highest and lowest values of the ensemble of spline fits at each spatial location were discarded, and the resulting range of ensemble values are plotted as the confidence limits in Fig. 8. The original spline curves () are plotted for the full data set from Fig. 7. Next the locations of all the neurons located rostral to 1.7 mm were shuffled randomly, and the data for the shuffled locations were fit with splines (- - -) for each time epoch. The distribution of activity at all times and for all rostral collicular locations as estimated by the spline fits to the shuffled data remains inside the 95% confidence levels, generating further doubt about the notion that there is a serial-order rostral spread of activity on the SC during saccades. These results would be compatible with a hypothesis that many buildup neurons located some distance rostral to the region of maximal activity during saccades are suppressed or totally silenced just before saccade onset and then become reactivated as a group with temporal jitter but not in serial order based on location as the saccade progresses. The location of the region of rostrally inhibited neurons appears to vary with saccade size.
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FIG. 8.
Confidence limits on the spline fit estimations of 1-dimensional distribution of buildup layer activity for a 20° contralateral horizontal saccade. Same time frames shown in Fig. 7 are included from top to bottom. , same spline fits to the actual data shown in Fig. 7 (right). Shaded regions show the 95% confidence limits for the spline fits generated by a bootstrap technique described in the text. - - -, spline fits to distributed activity when the locations of the cells within the rostral 1.7 mm of the SC first had been shuffled randomly. Note that the fits for the actual data and the spatially shuffled data both remain inside the 95% confidence boundaries for all time frames, suggesting that either fit is an equally good statistical representation of the distribution of activity along the horizontal meridian of the SC for all time instants around the time of this saccade.
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FIG. 9.
Two-dimensional population activity in 2 layers of the SC for a 20° horizontal, contralateral saccade. Each section shows the distributed activity on the collicular motor map. Top: activity shown as constant contour curves in the burst neuron layer. Bottom: same representation for the buildup neuron layer. Left: ~100 ms before saccade start. Middle: distribution of activity at saccade start. Right: saccade end. Contour curves are 15, 30, 60, and 120 spikes/s.
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FIG. 13.
Saccade-related movement of the center of mass of the population activity in the burst (top) and buildup layer (bottom) layers of SC. Each section represents the medial half of the collicular motor map (Fig. 6) with the rostral limit of the colliculus at the 0 point on each abscissa and medial distance from the midcollicular axis on each ordinate. Each arrow is arranged so that its tail represents the center of mass of the population activity at saccade onset and its tip represents the same measure at saccade end. Arrows in each section plotted along the midcollicular axis are for (starting most caudally) 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, and 2.5° contralateral, horizontal saccades. Arrows located more vertically in each section represent 45° up-oblique saccades over the same range of movements in the buildup layer but a smaller range of amplitudes (15, 10, 5, and 2.5°) in the burst layer. Where the arrows overlapped they have been shifted vertically by a small amount for clarity.
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FIG. 10.
Two-dimensional population activity in 2 layers of the SC for a 2.5° horizontal saccade. Same conventions as Fig. 9.
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FIG. 11.
Two-dimensional population activity in 2 layers of the SC for a 15° up-oblique saccade. Same conventions as Fig. 9.
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FIG. 12.
Cross-sections through the 2-dimensional population activity surfaces for 20° saccade (Fig. 9) at saccade onset and end. A: section along the horizontal meridian of the SC for the burst layer (top) and the buildup layer (bottom). B: orthogonal section from that shown in A along a mediolateral anatomic axis of the SC at 2.8 mm from its rostral limit. This section passes very close to or through the peak of the population activity at saccade onset in both layers. In all panels, the population activity first was normalized to the peak of that layer's activity for all locations and times before the sections were made. , activity at saccade onset; - - -, activity at saccade end.
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FIG. 14.
A: proportions of the total surface area of the contralateral colliculus active (defined as discharge >15 spikes/s) at saccade onset for saccades of different sizes and directions. Active areas computed from population surfaces (similar to examples shown in Figs. 9-11). B: peak activity measurements at saccade onset for saccades of different sizes and directions. Each data point was computed from population activity surfaces. and 
, measurements for the buildup layer; and 
, corresponding measurements in the burst layer. , horizontal saccades; - - -, 45° oblique saccades.
) for a 2.5° horizontal saccade. In this figure, time is marked on the abscissa with respect to the end of the saccade (at time 0). The dashed vertical lines show the approximate time of saccade onset (left) and saccade end (right). In Fig. 15B, similar summed temporal signals for the two layers are plotted for a 20° horizontal saccade.
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FIG. 15.
Summed population activity in 2 layers of the SC as a function of time with respect to saccade end. A: summed activity for a 2.5° horizontal saccade. B: summed activity for a 20° horizontal saccade. , buildup layer activity; - - -, burst layer activity. Dashed vertical lines indicate the times of saccade onset and end. Each curve was normalized so that its maximum equaled unity.
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FIG. 16.
Total cumulative activity in 2 layers of the SC for a range of horizontal saccade amplitudes. Data points show total activity summed over the contralateral collicular surface and over saccade duration for saccade amplitudes from 2.5 to 25°. Units on the ordinate are normalized to the largest value computed for the buildup layer. and , cumulative activity in the buildup layer. and - - -, same measures in the burst layer.
DISCUSSION
Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
). We first presented the results of a one-dimensional analysis for horizontal saccades. The one-dimensional analysis was conducted on a subset of our total sample of collicular neurons
those located close to the horizontal meridian of the SC. We conducted this analysis in a similar fashion to the one-dimensional analysis carried out by Munoz and Wurtz to show that we had sampled a analogous group of collicular neurons.
. The visual impression produced by the changes in the spline fits to the population activity as time progresses from before saccade onset, through the movement, and on to its end is compatible with their hypothesis that a spread of activity occurs from a location near the center of mass of activity around the time of saccade onset to the most rostral buildup cells by saccade end or shortly thereafter. Quantitative measurements on the magnitude of the shift in the center of mass of activity in the buildup layer (~0.25 mm) agree for 20° horizontal movements where our study overlaps with theirs. However, the order of activation in those buildup neurons located rostral to the location of the center of mass (~1.7 mm for 20° saccades) during the saccade cannot be determined in a statistical manner from visual inspection of the spline curves even on our 2-ms time resolution plots of the one-dimensional data. Statistical analyses of the distributed activity in buildup cells rostral to the 1.7 mm location could not reject the null hypothesis that activation of these cells was in random order as opposed to a serially ordered sequence of activation from caudal to rostral as would be expected if an organized spread of activity through the region were occurring. We believe that the data from both studies are equally compatible with the hypothesis that the tonic presaccadic activity of both fixation cells and rostrally located buildup neurons is inhibited before the onset of large saccades as activity is increasing in more caudally located buildup cells at the optimal point on the map for that particular saccade. As the saccade progresses and its end approaches, activity at the latter location collapses rapidly, while the whole rostral region of inhibited cells (both buildup neurons and fixation neurons) becomes reactivated over a short period of time but essentially in random order.
).
) and electrophysiological (Gandhi and Keller 1997) studies have shown that a negative gradient of projection strength exists from the rostral to caudal SC to the region of the omnipause neurons. It seems likely that these inputs from the SC serve as one source of excitatory input to maintain the discharge of the omnipause neurons and hence the state of fixation in the presaccadic interval. This notion would help explain the marked asymmetry in population activity seen along the rostralcaudal extent of the colliculus before saccade onset.
), and when allowance is made for transmission and synaptic delays, collicular events should lead eye movement events by ~8 ms. This estimate corresponds exactly with the measurements recently made that show a minimum of 8 ms before eye movements are affected after SC stimulation during ongoing saccades (Miyashita and Hikosaka 1996). The evidence that supports a rostrally directed spread of activity is even less convincing in plots of population activity at 8 ms before saccade end.
in their one-dimensional analysis. These shifts were small (~0.25 mm), and were caused as much by the more rapid collapse of activity during saccades in regions caudal to the center of mass compared with slightly more rostrally situated neurons (as can be seen from careful inspection of Figs. 7, 9, and 11) as by any rostrally directed spread of activity.
) (see also the cell shown in Fig. 4, right). Many buildup cells are active for saccades in either direction, even for horizontal movements. A more complete analysis would have to include neurons in both colliculi. Finally our analyses are limited to saccades <25° in amplitude or even smaller for oblique movements. In the Munoz and Wurtz (1995b) analysis, the apparent rostrally directed spread of activity was most noticeable for larger saccades (30, 40, and 50°). It is possible that we failed to find support for their hypothesis because the largest saccades for which we could estimate population activity were ~20°. However, if a spread of activity is the general mechanism controlling saccades, it should still be present for 20° movements, which are already "large" saccades in the natural repertoire of primates (Bahill et al. 1975). In addition, the utility of studying cells at the extreme caudal extent of the colliculus that would be active for eye saccades >20° in the fixed-head monkey recently has been questioned by the demonstration that electrical stimulation of the SC produces combined eye-head gaze shifts (Cowie and Robinson 1994; Freedman et al. 1996; Segraves and Goldberg 1991). These studies show that head movement contributions to the evoked gaze shifts become progressively more dominant as the stimulation site is moved more caudal. However, for saccades <20° the eye saccade usually makes up the major portion of the gaze shift, if the eyes are centered in the orbit (Freedman et al. 1996; Philips et al. 1995).
based on more limited data. Based on their one-dimensional analysis, Munoz and Wurtz (1995b) estimated that ~28% of the collicular surface was active in the burst layer at the peak of activity for any saccade. Similar estimates were made by Ottes et al. (1986) based on their limited spatial sampling of burst cells. Our more extensive two-dimensional analysis shows that the earlier estimates are approximately correct. Our results show that ~25% of the burst layer is active at saccade onset, and the amount of active area is relatively invariant with saccade size and direction.
15°, but overall the active area also remains relatively invariant as a function of saccade vector. The active area in the buildup layer is consistently about twice the size of that in the burst layer.
note that a true average of a symmetrically arranged population of active burst cells would not yield the movement represented by cells in the geometric center of the population because of the nonlinearity of the amplitude scale on the motor map. They suggest that a nonlinear synaptic weighting of the contribution of cells at different locations to the brain stem saccadic burst generator could solve the problem but the scaling of peak amplitude of cells' discharge as a function of cell location on the SC as seen in our data also could contribute to the solution.
). In another model, the summed signals from the two layers have been hypothesized to code the desired ocular displacement (i.e., the saccadic goal) for the burst layer and the current ocular displacement in the ongoing saccade in the buildup layer (Optican 1995). It is difficult to reconcile the predictions of the latter theory with the more rapid decline of activity in the burst layer with respect to that in the buildup layer as shown by Fig. 15. In fact, summed buildup activity also declines during the saccade instead of increasing as would be expected if it coded the change in eye position. In yet another model summed output is hypothesized to code saccadic velocity (Scudder 1988).
, following a learning procedure, weights representing synaptic strength from burst cells increased by a factor of three from rostral to caudal colliculus to produce the larger saccades with higher velocities coded by more caudal regions.
; Optican 1995). In an alternative approach, a neural network is trained to produce a candidate set of weights that will solve the dynamic control problem using estimates of the distributed collicular output (Arai et al. 1994; Das et al. 1995; Massone 1994). Although it is not clear at the present time how to best solve or even understand the problem of estimating the distributed connections from population coded structures like the SC, it is true that two-dimensional estimates of the spatio-temporal activity in the SC during saccades like those we present here form the essential starting data for such endeavors.
posit the existence an organized spread of activity through rostral cells that is driven by a neural mechanism involving the spatial integration of an eye velocity feedback signal by a network of buildup cells (Optican 1995). Thus this hypothesis is an intracollicular theory that controls saccadic dynamics by the present location of the rostrally directed spread of activity until fixation neurons are reactivated, an event that ends the saccade. Instead we argue that the focus of attention for the control of saccade dynamics should be on the discharge of the most active cells (both buildup and burst cells) at the optimal location on the collicular map. Their greatly increased activity at saccade onset and subsequent rapid decline (more rapid in burst neurons than in buildup cells as shown in Fig. 15) in activity during the movement could play a role in the control of saccade dynamics similar to that hypothesized for burst cells alone in earlier theories of collicular dynamic control (Das et al. 1995; Waitzman et al. 1991). We view the return of low-level activity in rostral buildup neurons and fixation neurons near or after saccade end as a mechanism assisting the reactivation of omnipause neurons to which both groups are heavily connected (Gandhi and Keller 1997). The return of activity in rostral collicular cells thus would aid in the reestablishment of fixation at the end of a movement. Alternatively, the reactivation of rostral collicular neurons might be associated with the planning of small corrective saccades that normally follow movements made to larger eccentricity targets (Becker 1989). We negated the production of corrective saccades in our experiments by turning off the target before saccade onset but cannot rule out the planing of such movements because our monkeys did make hypometric saccades to the large eccentric target displacements used here.
), correlations do not prove causality. If the colliculus is not inside a dynamic feedback loop that specifically computes dynamic motor error, some other mechanism would be required to reduce collicular burst activity so that it is over (burst cells) or reaches the end of its rapid phase of decline (buildup cells) by saccade end. The decline in discharge (for both types of cells) could be an emergent property of the network of collicular cells being interconnected by near neighbor excitation and more distant lateral inhibition as hypothesized by Arai et al. (1994). In this case, the time constant of decline of activity would be dependent on network connectivity and not the feedback of eye movement information. This possibility is made untenable by the observations made on collicular burst cell discharge during interrupted saccades by Keller and Edelman (1994). Their results showed that burst cell discharge, instead of continuing to decline with its expected time course during the period of interruption when the eyes were not moving, was totally inhibited and then showed a second burst of discharge, the completion of which still remained correlated with the end of the resumed movement. These results are most easily explained by assuming that the colliculus receives dynamic feedback information about eye motion. The results do not prove that dynamic motor error is computed by the feedback loop.
). In opposition to the latter idea are reports on the temporal properties of either frontal eye field neurons or substantia nigra neurons, the two most likely sources of such extracollicular input, which do not show any discharge that correlates with dynamic motor error (Hikosaka and Wurtz 1983; Segraves and Park 1993).
, we used quantitatively different criteria to separate our population of cells into three types for the one-dimensional analyses. In particular, we used the depth of cells from the dorsal surface of the SC as the primary criterion to divide our cells into two layers (<1.4 and >1.6 mm). Cells located in the intermediate zone (1.5-1.6 mm from the surface) were classified as buildup or burst cells on the basis of their early presaccadic discharge characteristics.
also made a similar observation but then arbitrarily placed a dividing line at a distance of 0.72 mm from the rostral limit of the SC and classified cells located rostral to this limit, and that paused for saccades, as fixation cells. As an alternative classification, we placed a cell in the buildup class if we could find a small saccades for which the cell showed a saccade-related increase of activity instead of a pause. Because it was difficult to routinely obtain saccades of <1° in our monkeys and because the size of the field for which increases in activity were observed decreased with more rostral locations, it is possible that all rostral collicular neurons would have a small region for which they would show increases rather than pauses of activity. In the two-dimensional analyses, we combined both the buildup neurons and the fixation neurons in a single layer in computing the spatio-temporal activity during saccades with our radial basis algorithm. Another recent study also has suggested that "there are no fundamental differences between rostral buildup and fixation neurons" (Krauzlis et al. 1997).
for a review). Glimcher and Sparks (1992) have described a class of collicular neurons they called prelude bursters that resemble buildup cells in the property of extensive presaccadic discharge. However, they have not described the depth of their cells from the surface of the colliculus or whether they show open-field discharge characteristics. In any case, none of our present observations are in conflict with their suggestion that cells with marked presaccadic discharge (their prelude class) play a role in movement selection. In conclusion, we suggest that the artificial division between fixation neurons and rostral buildup neurons be dropped and instead that they be referred to as tonic rostral collicular neurons. In this new classification scheme, it would be understood that the density of such cells would decline smoothly with caudal progression on the SC.
; Ottes et al. 1986). The nonlinear coordinate transformation for the Ottes et al.'s collicular motor map (1986), which is based on stimulation results, then was used to convert each cell's best amplitude and direction coordinates to anatomic location on the colliculus. Because the movement fields of many buildup neurons have very broad spatial peaks or show multiple peaks during saccades, as shown by our present analysis, we believe that using the saccade vector corresponding to the location of the absolute peak discharge over space and time to place cells, is likely to produce large errors (in location) for some neurons. For example, the cell shown in Fig. 5 would be placed at a very caudal location based the preferred saccade for its motor discharge. Yet we knew from the characteristics of other nearby cells recorded on the same perpendicular penetration and from the strong secondary peak in its movement field that it was more likely located at the rostral location where we placed it based on its visual response. Furthermore, some cells showed large movements in the location of their peak discharge over their movement field maps at different perisaccadic time frames.
). We found, in contrast, that there could be large differences in the location of the visual and motor field peaks for some buildup cells. The apparent discrepancy may be due to sampling differences that appeared to include mostly burst cells in the previous study. Wurtz and Goldberg (1972) also reported that only 60% of their deeper layer cells showed visual responses in addition to their motor response. We found that 95% of our cells had a detectable visual response. Perhaps we could better distinguish visual and motor responses with the use of the delayed saccades task as opposed to their use of the regular saccade paradigm.
has pointed out that there may be systematic shifts in the centers of the visual fields of collicular cells in comparison with the center of the retinal locus from which they receive input. This can introduce a systematic bias in placement of the cells on the SC map when the center is defined as the geometric center or the center of mass of the field. We circumvented this potential problem by using the peak of the visual field as our measure of the optimal target vector. In addition, we examined the difference between the location for a cell determined by the center of its visual response and its location determined by electrical microstimulation at the recording site for some of the cells in our sample and did not find a systematic shift in the rostral direction for the use of the visual field centers. Thus it does not seem likely that our use of a different method of localization could have caused us to miss evidence for a rostral spread of activity during saccades.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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The authors are grateful to Dr. Lance Optican for helpful discussions on computational issues involved in estimating two-dimensional spatio-temporal activity in the SC.
The research reported here was supported partially by National Institutes of Health Grants R01 EY-06860 and 5T32 GM-08155. Computational aspects of the work was supported partially by IBN-9511365 from the National Science Foundation.
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FOOTNOTES |
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Address for reprint requests: E. L. Keller, Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute, 2232 Webster St., San Francisco, CA 94115.
Received 8 August 1997; accepted in final form 2 April 1998.
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REFERENCES |
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Abstract
Introduction
Methods
Results
Discussion
References
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S. S. Williamson, A. Z. Zivotofsky, and M. A. Basso Modulation of Gaze-Evoked Blinks Depends Primarily on Extraretinal Factors J Neurophysiol, January 1, 2005; 93(1): 627 - 632. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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S. Matsuo, A. Bergeron, and D. Guitton Evidence for Gaze Feedback to the Cat Superior Colliculus: Discharges Reflect Gaze Trajectory Perturbations J. Neurosci., March 17, 2004; 24(11): 2760 - 2773. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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R. M. McPeek, J. H. Han, and E. L. Keller Competition Between Saccade Goals in the Superior Colliculus Produces Saccade Curvature J Neurophysiol, May 1, 2003; 89(5): 2577 - 2590. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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R. M. McPeek and E. L. Keller Saccade Target Selection in the Superior Colliculus During a Visual Search Task J Neurophysiol, October 1, 2002; 88(4): 2019 - 2034. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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R. Soetedjo, C. R. S. Kaneko, and A. F. Fuchs Evidence Against a Moving Hill in the Superior Colliculus During Saccadic Eye Movements in the Monkey J Neurophysiol, June 1, 2002; 87(6): 2778 - 2789. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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R. Soetedjo, C. R. S. Kaneko, and A. F. Fuchs Evidence That the Superior Colliculus Participates in the Feedback Control of Saccadic Eye Movements J Neurophysiol, February 1, 2002; 87(2): 679 - 695. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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R. J. Krauzlis, M. A. Basso, and R. H. Wurtz Discharge Properties of Neurons in the Rostral Superior Colliculus of the Monkey During Smooth-Pursuit Eye Movements J Neurophysiol, August 1, 2000; 84(2): 876 - 891. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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N. L. Port, M. A. Sommer, and R. H. Wurtz Multielectrode Evidence for Spreading Activity Across the Superior Colliculus Movement Map J Neurophysiol, July 1, 2000; 84(1): 344 - 357. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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H.H.L.M. Goossens and A. J. Van Opstal Blink-Perturbed Saccades in Monkey. II. Superior Colliculus Activity J Neurophysiol, June 1, 2000; 83(6): 3430 - 3452. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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M. A. Sommer and R. H. Wurtz Composition and Topographic Organization of Signals Sent From the Frontal Eye Field to the Superior Colliculus J Neurophysiol, April 1, 2000; 83(4): 1979 - 2001. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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M. Missal, S. de Brouwer, P. Lefevre, and E. Olivier Activity of Mesencephalic Vertical Burst Neurons During Saccades and Smooth Pursuit J Neurophysiol, April 1, 2000; 83(4): 2080 - 2092. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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N. J. Gandhi and E. L. Keller Comparison of Saccades Perturbed by Stimulation of the Rostral Superior Colliculus, the Caudal Superior Colliculus, and the Omnipause Neuron Region J Neurophysiol, December 1, 1999; 82(6): 3236 - 3253. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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C. Quaia, P. Lefevre, and L. M. Optican Model of the Control of Saccades by Superior Colliculus and Cerebellum J Neurophysiol, August 1, 1999; 82(2): 999 - 1018. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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J. A. Edelman and E. L. Keller Dependence on Target Configuration of Express Saccade-Related Activity in the Primate Superior Colliculus J Neurophysiol, September 1, 1998; 80(3): 1407 - 1426. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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