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The Journal of Neuroscience, March 21, 2007, 27(12):3268-3273; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.5415-06.2007

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Brief Communications
Postsaccadic Activities in the Posterior Parietal Cortex of Primates Are Influenced by both Eye Movement Vectors and Eye Position

Aldo Genovesio, Emiliano Brunamonti, Maria Assunta Giusti, and Stefano Ferraina

Department of Human Physiology and Pharmacology, University "La Sapienza," 00185 Rome, Italy

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Stefano Ferraina, Department of Human Physiology and Pharmacology, University "La Sapienza," Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy. Email: stefano.ferraina{at}uniroma1.it

Primates explore their visual environment by redirecting the gaze to objects of interest by alternating eye movements and periods of steady fixation. During this task, the fixation point changes frequently in depth. Therefore, the representation of object location based on retinal disparity requires frequent updating. Neural activity was recorded in the lateral intraparietal (LIP) area while monkeys performed saccades between targets in different depths. We report that in the early postsaccadic period, posterior parietal neurons continue to encode the difference in depth between fixation point and targets. About one-third of these neurons are, during the same period, modulated by eye position in depth as well. In the late postsaccadic period, the influence of the previous movement vector dissipates, and parietal neurons are modulated only by the new fixation distance. This result suggests that the postsaccadic activity of area LIP contributes to the dynamic representation of the visual space, and it is compatible with the presence of both a vector subtraction computation and eye-position-dependent gain fields.

Key words: posterior parietal cortex; eye movements; distance; monkeys; space remapping; depth

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Received June 10, 2006; revised Feb. 23, 2007; accepted Feb. 23, 2007.

Correspondence should be addressed to Dr. Stefano Ferraina, Department of Human Physiology and Pharmacology, University "La Sapienza," Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Rome, Italy. Email: stefano.ferraina{at}uniroma1.it

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