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Parallel activation of prospective motor plans during visually-guided sequential saccades

Bhutani, Neha and Sengupta, Sonal and Basu, Debaleena and Prabhu, Nikhil G and Murthy, Aditya (2017) Parallel activation of prospective motor plans during visually-guided sequential saccades. In: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, 45 (5). pp. 631-642.

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ejn.13496

Abstract

Behavioural evidences suggest that sequential saccades to multiple stimuli are planned in parallel. However, it remains unclear whether such parallel programming reflects concurrent processing of goals or whether multiple motor plans coexist, unfolding subsequently during execution. Here we use midway saccades, directed at intermediate locations between two targets, as a probe to address this question in a novel double-step adaptation task. The task consisted of trials where subjects had to follow the appearance of two targets presented in succession with two sequential saccades. In some trials, the second target predictably jumped to a new location during the second saccade. Initially, the second saccade was aimed at the final target's location before the jump. As subjects adapted to the target jump, saccades were aimed to the second target's new location. We tested whether the spatial distribution of midway saccades could be explained as an interaction between two concurrent saccade goals, each directed at the two target locations, or between the initial motor plan to the first target location and a prospective motor plan directed from the initial to the final target location. A shift in the midway saccades' distribution towards the jumped location of the second target following adaptation indicated that the brain can make use of prospective motor plans to guide sequential eye movements. Furthermore, we observed that the spatiotemporal pattern of endpoints of midway saccades can be well explained by a motor addition model. These results provide strong evidence of parallel activation of prospective motor plans during sequential saccades.

Item Type: Journal Article
Publication: EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE
Additional Information: Copy right for this article belongs to the WILEY, 111 RIVER ST, HOBOKEN 07030-5774, NJ USA
Department/Centre: Division of Biological Sciences > Centre for Neuroscience
Date Deposited: 19 May 2017 10:31
Last Modified: 19 May 2017 10:31
URI: http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/56673

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