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Report
1Division of Visual Science, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, and 2Department of Neurology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Submitted 4 March 2003; accepted in final form 27 October 2003
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Laboratory evaluation of saccade adaptation mechanisms has used a second approach in normal humans and monkeys. In the double-step paradigm pioneered by Mclaughlin (1967
), a consistent positional error induced by changing the position of the target during a saccadic eye movement resulted in a gradual change of saccadic gain in both humans and monkeys (Albano and King 1989
; Deubel et al. 1986
; Mclaughlin 1967
; Straube et al. 1997
). The stimulus for adaptation is the retinal error at the end of the initial saccade and not the motor error due to corrective saccades (Noto and Robinson 2001
; Wallman and Fuchs 1998
). Adaptation is direction- and amplitude-specific (Albano 1996
; Frens and van Opstal 1994
; Watanabe et al. 2000), i.e., adaptation to one direction and amplitude does not readily transfer to other directions or amplitudes. Adaptation can be tied to contextual cues such as eye position or head tilt (Shelhamer and Clendaniel 2002
). Scudder et al. (1998
) compared rates of adaptation following muscle paresis, and using the double-step paradigm, concluded that these two types of adaptation are similar when examined under controlled conditions. In perhaps the only adaptation study that measured movements of both eyes in normal human subjects, it has been shown that the double-step paradigm results in conjugate adaptation (Albano and Marrero 1995
).
In our work with animals reared with sensory forms of strabismus, we have described horizontal saccade disconjugacy in monkeys with large horizontal misalignment (Fu et al. 2001
; Tusa et al. 2002
). The goals of this study were to determine whether the double-step paradigm could induce adaptation in animals with large horizontal misalignment and to compare the adaptation induced in the two eyes. Some of the results have been published in preliminary form (Das et al. 2002
, 2003).
| METHODS |
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Sterile surgical procedures carried out under aseptic conditions using isoflurane anesthesia (1.25-2.5%) were used to stereotaxically implant a head stabilization post and binocular scleral search coils when the animals were about 2 yr old (other details, including details of equipment and experimental setup, are provided in Das et al. 2001
). All procedures were performed in strict compliance with National Institutes of Health guidelines and the protocols were reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Emory University.
The saccade adaptation testing began after the animal was trained to be able to make a large number of saccades (
500-1,000; monocular or binocular viewing), in one experimental session. The animal was rewarded with a drop of juice for fixating the target with the viewing eye during monocular viewing or either eye during binocular viewing. The goal of the backward adaptation paradigm was to adaptively reduce saccade gain. In this paradigm, a trial began with the animal monocularly fixating a stationary target (within a ±3° window for a duration of 1.5 s) at primary position (i.e., straight ahead). The target then randomly jumped to a location either 10° or 15° to the right of primary gaze. A saccade to this new target location was detected by the computer (based on an
50°/s eye velocity criterion), and this triggered a backward jump equal to 30% of initial target movement (see Fig. 1 for example). Sometimes the second target jump occurred just after saccade offset (always within 30 ms), which is equally effective in driving adaptation (Shafer et al. 2000
; also see Fig. 2). The trial ended when the monkey re-fixated the final target location for
1.5 s. The target was reset and a new trial was begun if the animal did not make a saccade to the target within 1.5 s. Trials were presented repeatedly until it appeared that the animal was consistently making saccades to the final target location rather than the initial target location. The four animals were each tested once with either the left or right eye viewing (separate days), resulting in a total of eight adaptation sessions.
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We characterized saccade adaptation by fitting an exponential function to the saccadic gain and order number of the saccades (Straube et al. 1997
). The equation of the fit used for backward adaptation was
![]() | (1) |
is the time constant of decay, (G0 + A) is the initial gain, G0 is the asymptotic gain (i.e., saccadic gain if the experiment were continued until adaptation was complete), and n is the saccade order number. Therefore the change in gain due to adaptation is given by the parameter A. For each adaptation session, we compared the time constant (
) of the exponential fit functions in the viewing and nonviewing eyes (t-test). We calculated a percentage change in gain in the viewing and nonviewing eyes from the initial and final gains estimated via the fit function and also from the actual data. To estimate the initial and final gain from the data, we took the means of the first and last 25 saccades in each adaptation session. Statistical comparison of the percentage change in gain in the viewing and nonviewing eyes were performed using a paired t-test (significance value of 0.05) on the entire group (8 viewing conditions as shown in the Tables) after verifying that the data were normally distributed. In addition to analysis of saccade gain, we also analyzed saccade kinematics by comparing saccade duration, latency, and peak velocity in the viewing and nonviewing eyes. | RESULTS |
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Figure 2 shows summary data collected during an adaptation session in N1 (normal monkey; Fig. 2, A and B), S1 (monkey with exotropia; Fig. 2, C and D), S3 (monkey with exotropia; Fig. 2, E and F), and S2 (monkey with esotropia; Fig. 2, G and H). Data from both the viewing and the nonviewing eyes are illustrated. Panels in Fig. 2 show that both the normal and strabismic animals adapt their saccade gain during monocular viewing. Furthermore, animals with strabismus adapt saccadic gain in both their viewing and their nonviewing eyes.
Comparison of adaptation in viewing and nonviewing eyes
Figure 2 also shows examples of the exponential fits to the viewing and nonviewing eye in N1, S1, S3, and S2. The parameters of the fit and the goodness of fit (estimated by the r2 value) are shown in Table 1 for all the conditions tested. The goodness of fit is variable with monkey S2 (Fig. 2, G and H), showing the greatest scatter of data. However, excluding this animal, the goodness of fit that we obtained (average r2 for viewing eye = 0.39 ± 0.15; average r2 for nonviewing eye = 0.37 ± 0.15) is comparable to those reported by Straube et al. (1997
), who examined a number of normal animals over multiple sessions. Statistical analysis showed no significant differences between the time constant of adaptation in the viewing and the nonviewing eye (in 8/8 conditions in the strabismic and normal animals shown in Table 1; P > 0.05), suggesting that progression of saccade adaptation was similar in the two eyes.
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We analyzed saccade kinematics by calculating peak velocity, latency, and duration of the initial saccade in the viewing and nonviewing eyes prior to (1st 25 saccades) and after (last 25 saccades) adaptation. The data are displayed in Table 2. The duration data show that there is very little difference in saccade durations in the viewing and the nonviewing eyes both before and after adaptation. Straube et al. (1997
) have reported a postadaptation increase in latency in some but not all animals. We found a significant postadaptation increase in latency in the viewing eye in four of eight conditions tested (S1_LEV, S1_REV, S2_LEV, and N1_REV). In the other four conditions, latency changes in the viewing eye due to adaptation were not significant (P > 0.05). The same four testing conditions also yielded significant changes in postadaptation latency in the nonviewing eye. The peak velocity data showed considerable variability among the different animals and also between the viewing and nonviewing eyes (see Table 2). The peak velocity of postadaptation (last 25) saccades was consistently lower in both the viewing and the nonviewing eyes compared with preadaptation (1st 25) saccades. This might be a characteristic of the adaptation or could be partially due to fatigue (Straube et al. 1997
). However, our analysis showed that postadaptation peak velocity reductions in the viewing and nonviewing eye were proportionate (<5% difference) in all but one condition tested (S2_LEV, % reduction of peak velocity in viewing eye = 6.75%; % reduction of peak velocity in nonviewing eye = 21.25%, resulting in a difference of 14.5%).
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| DISCUSSION |
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Our results show that, like normal monkeys, strabismic monkeys are able to adapt their saccade gain during the doublestep paradigm. Bucci et al. (1997
) suggested that loss of disconjugate adaptive control accompanied loss of binocular function in humans with large angles of strabismus. While we have not confirmed that the animals used in this study suffered from loss of disconjugate adaptive control, we know that these animals had impaired binocular function (Tusa et al. 2002
). Our study indirectly suggests that a loss of disconjugate adaptive control may not generalize to other forms of adaptation.
We have also shown that adaptation occurs in both eyes during monocular viewing conditions in normal and strabismic monkeys. Our findings confirm the results of experiments conducted by Albano and Marrero (1995
) in normal humans that showed transfer of adaptation occurs between the viewing and the nonviewing eye under monocular viewing conditions. Prior to conducting the experiments, one possible albeit extreme prediction would have been that, in animals with strabismus, adaptation would occur only in the viewing eye and that the nonviewing eye would remain unadapted. Such a result would have suggested that saccade adaptation functions via independent channels for each eye (similar to the idea proposed by Bucci et al. 1997
for disconjugate adaptation). However, our results suggest that even in an animal with a large misalignment, certain saccade adaptation mechanisms remain yoked.
Finally, we have shown that adaptation in the viewing and the nonviewing eye is equal (equal time constant and equal percentage change in gain) even in animals with large strabismus. While pre-existing unequal saccadic gains in the two eyes are likely to affect the magnitude of adaptation, it is unlikely to change the time course of adaptation in the two eyes as long as they are driven by the same adapting signal. Our results therefore suggest that a single central representation of positional retinal error (positional error in the viewing eye) drives adaptation for both eyes. The variability in saccade adaptation data, both ours (especially S2) and normal monkey data reported by Straube et al. 1997
, makes it difficult to prove conclusively that the strategy used by strabismic animals to achieve adaptation is identical to that of normal monkeys. However, the sum total of all our analysis on viewing eye and nonviewing eye data (i.e., % change in gain, asymptotic % changes in gain, time constants, saccade latency effects, saccade velocity effects, and coupling of saccadic duration in viewing and nonviewing eyes) all seems to point to the fact that conjugate saccade adaptation mechanisms remain intact in animals with strabismus.
So what is the source of saccade disconjugacy in some animals and humans with large angles of strabismus? While our experiments cannot answer this question directly, they suggest that saccade disconjugacy is not due to a generalized failure of the adaptive process. The underlying cause of disconjugacy could be related to the specific inability to adapt disconjugately to asymmetries in the oculomotor plant (Bucci et al. 1997
; Kapoula et al. 1997
) or could be related to other motor aspects associated with strabismus (for example a miscalibrated neural integrator, aspects of torsional control, oculomotor muscle pulleys). It is believed that the rapid saccade adaptation elicited by the double step paradigm is due to cerebellar mechanisms possibly involving the vermis and the fastigial nucleus (Goldberg et al. 1993
; Robinson et al. 2002
; Scudder et al. 1998
). Optican and Robinson (1980
) showed that saccade adaptation induced after muscle paresis depends on the cerebellum. Some patients with cerebellar dysfunction also suffer from saccade disconjugacy, which could be interpreted as a lack of disconjugate adaptation (Versino et al. 1996
). Possibly, the cerebellar flocculus/paraflocculus is important for this function. Taking these data into account, we suggest that the disconjugacy observed in animals and human with large angles of strabismus is probably due to the floccular complex in the cerebellum or motor mechanisms downstream from the cerebellum.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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GRANTS
This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grants EY-06069, RR-00165, and NS-07480.
| FOOTNOTES |
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Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: V. E. Das, Div. of Visual Sciences, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory Univ., 954 Gatewood Rd., Atlanta, GA 30322 (E-mail: vdas{at}rmy.emory.edu).
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