Role of striate cortex and superior colliculus in visual guidance of saccadic eye movements in monkeys

Abstract

1. We studied the effect of lesions placed in striate cortex or superior colliculus on the detection of visual stimuli and the accuracy of saccadic eye movements. The monkeys (Macaca mulatta) first learned to respond to a 0.25 degrees spot of light flashed for 150-200 ms in one part of the visual field while they were fixating in order to determine if they could detect the light. The monkeys also learned in a different task to make a saccade to the spot of light when the fixation point went out, and the accuracy of the saccades was measured. 2. Following a unilateral partial ablation of the striate cortex in two monkeys they could not detect the spot of light in the resulting scotoma or saccade to it. The deficit was only relative; if we increased the brightness of the stimulus from the usual 11 cd/m2 to 1,700 cd/m2 against a background of 1 cd/m2 the monkeys were able to detect and to make a saccade to the spot of light. 3. Following about 1 mo of practice on the detection and saccade tasks, the monkeys recovered the ability to detect the spots of light and to make saccades to them without gross errors (saccades made beyond an area of +/-3 average standard deviations). Lowering the stimulus intensity reinstated both the detection and saccadic errors...