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J Neurophysiol (April 1, 2009). doi:10.1152/jn.90983.2008
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Submitted on September 2, 2008
Revised on February 13, 2009
Accepted on March 30, 2009

Influence of Task Predictability on the Activity of Neurons in the Rostral Superior Colliculus during Double-Step Saccades

Vicente F. Reyes-Puerta1, Roland Philipp1, Werner Lindner1, Lars Lünenburger2, and Klaus-Peter Hoffmann3*

1 Ruhr-University Bochum
2 Balgrist University Hospital
3 Ruhr University Bochum

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: kph{at}neurobiologie.rub.de.

Target probability has been shown to modulate motor preparatory activity of neurons in the caudal Superior Colliculus (SC) of the primate. Here we tested whether top-down processes like task predictability influence the activity of neurons also at the rostral pole of the SC (rSC) - classically related to fixation. In order to investigate this, double-step saccade tasks were embedded in two different paradigms, one containing unpredictable and another containing predictable tasks. During predictable tasks the animals could develop some expectation about the forthcoming second target jump, i.e. anticipate when and where to make the second saccade. Neuronal responses were recorded during both paradigms and compared, revealing the influence of task predictability on the activity of rSC neurons during specific periods of fixation. In particular, neuronal activity stayed significantly lower during the fixation period between two successive saccades in predictable than in unpredictable tasks. In addition there was a learning effect within a session during predictable conditions, i.e. the inter-saccadic activity was higher in the early than in the late trials. Further, reaction times for the second saccade were shorter in predictable than in unpredictable tasks. However, we demonstrated that this difference in reaction times can not be solely accounted for by the reported difference in neural activity, which was mainly influenced by the predictability of the tasks. With these results we show that top-down processes such as predictability are imposed on the activity of neurons in the rostral pole of the primate SC.







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