A Reexamination of “Neck Reflex” Eye Movements in the Rabbit

Gresty, M. A.

doi:10.3109/00016487609119976

Cited by 114 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 12 publications

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“…The stability of the rabbit's eye in the last part of the saccadic head movement and in the intersaccadic intervals is excellent, even when the head is making vigorous and erratic movements . These findings are at variance with a recent report by Gresty (1976), who recorded no compensatory eye movements during voluntary head movements in a rabbit with the body restrained, but in agreement with all findings in other species. Dichgans et al (1973) have reported that ocular stability in the monkey was perfectly maintained in darkness, even during passive rotation of the head.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Eye‐ and head movements in freely moving rabbits.

Collewijn¹

1977

The Journal of Physiology

256

101

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3. Many saccades were initiated while the head was stationary. They were accompanied by a similar, but slower head rotation with approximately the same amplitude. The displacement of the eye in space was a pure step without appreciable under-or over-shoot. The deviation of the eye in the head was mostly transient.4. Other saccades were started while the head was moving and were possibly fast phases of a vestibulo-ocular reflex. The time course of the eye movement in space was identical for all saccades, whether the head was moving prior to the saccade or not. Eye movements without any head movement were not observed.5. Saccades were mostly large (average 206 + 12.40 S.D.) and never smaller than 10. The relations of maximal velocity and duration to amplitude were similar to those reported for man.6. Visual pursuit of moving objects, when elicited, was only saccadic and never smooth.7. It is concluded that the co-ordination and dynamics of the rabbit's head-and eye movements are similar to those of primates. In the absence of foveal specialization, the eye movements are restricted to a rather global redirection of the visual field, possibly in particular of the binocular area.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 77%

Eye‐ and head movements in freely moving rabbits.

Collewijn¹

1977

The Journal of Physiology

256

101

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“…The saccadic eye movements provoked by cervical stimulation have already been observed in a number of species (Gresty, 1976;Barnes & Forbat, 1979;Fuller, 1980;Hardy & Mirenowicz, 1991), but present some special features in the chameleon. In this animal, the saccadic response is very weak in the dark but prominent in the light, distinguishing it from what is found in the guinea pig (Gresty, 1976) and the pigeon (unpublished observations), in which visual input does not modify the saccadic response. Furthermore, in these two species only one or two saccades are triggered in the compensatory direction at the point when the trunk is aligned with the head.…”

Section: Properties Of the Cervico-ocular Reflex (Cor)mentioning

confidence: 94%

Visual and vestibular reflexes that stabilize gaze in the chameleon

1993

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Spontaneous eye movements as well as visual, vestibular, and proprioceptive cervical reflexes which contribute to gaze stabilization were investigated in the chameleon using the magnetic search-coil technique. The oculomotor range of each eye was very large (180 deg horizontally x 80 deg vertically). Spontaneous ocular saccades were independent in the two eyes and could have very large amplitudes. The fast phases of nystagmus during the stabilization reflexes were also independent in the eyes. In the head-restrained condition, optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) had a low gain in both horizontal and vertical planes (0.35 at 5 deg/s) and showed little binocular interaction. The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) exhibited a low gain (0.2-0.3 from 0.05-1 Hz) and a high-phase lead at low frequency (140 deg at 0.05 Hz). Rotation of the animal in the presence of a visible surround increased the overall gain of gaze stabilization to 0.4-0.5 (P < 0.01) and considerably reduced the phase lead (38 deg at 0.05 Hz). In the head-free condition, head and eye reflexes were active simultaneously during both optokinetic and vestibular stimulation, but nystagmic head movements appeared only occasionally with a rather loose eye-head coordination. During optokinetic stimulation, eye movements contributed more than head movements to gaze stabilization, whereas, during vestibular or visuo-vestibular stimulation, the relative contribution of eye and head responses varied with stimulus frequency. When the head was freed, overall gain for gaze stabilization increased from 0.35 to 0.45 (P < 0.05) for optokinetic stimulation at 5 deg/s and from 0.2-0.3 to 0.4-0.75 (P < 0.001) for vestibular stimulation at 0.05-1 Hz. Optimal gaze stabilization (gain of 0.8) was only obtained with combined visual and vestibular stimulation in the free-head condition. Cervical stimulation provoked a compensatory cervico-ocular reflex (COR) with a gain of 0.2-0.4 as well as ocular saccades, which were especially numerous in the presence of a visual surround. The direction of these saccades alternated between compensatory and anti-compensatory.

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“…Much of the vestibular system's output is targeted to visuomotor nuclei, which rely on acceleration information from the semicircular canals (SCC) and otolith organs to help stabilize the visual image on the retinal field while either external targets or the head and eyes are in motion. In animals that do not normally show large-magnitude eye movements, such as rabbits [15] and cats [16,17], vestibulocervical reflexes reorient the head to stabilize the visual field. In walking birds with laterally positioned eyes, anterior/posterior visual stabilization is achieved by "head bobbing" behavior [18], with the head moving backward as the body steps forward, followed by a rapid forward "lunge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interaction of vestibular, echolocation, and visual modalities guiding flight by the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus

Horowitz

Simmons

2004

The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America

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The big brown bat (Eptesicus fuscus) is an aerial-feeding insectivorous species that relies on echolocation to avoid obstacles and to detect flying insects. Spatial perception in the dark using echolocation challenges the vestibular system to function without substantial visual input for orientation. IR thermal video recordings show the complexity of bat flights in the field and suggest a highly dynamic role for the vestibular system in orientation and flight control. To examine this role, we carried out laboratory studies of flight behavior under illuminated and dark conditions in both static and rotating obstacle tests while administering heavy water (D2O) to impair vestibular inputs. Eptesicus carried out complex maneuvers through both fixed arrays of wires and a rotating obstacle array using both vision and echolocation, or when guided by echolocation alone. When treated with D2O in combination with lack of visual cues, bats showed considerable decrements in performance. These data indicate that big brown bats use both vision and echolocation to provide spatial registration for head position information generated by the vestibular system.

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A Reexamination of “Neck Reflex” Eye Movements in the Rabbit

Cited by 114 publications

References 12 publications

Eye‐ and head movements in freely moving rabbits.

Eye‐ and head movements in freely moving rabbits.

Visual and vestibular reflexes that stabilize gaze in the chameleon

Interaction of vestibular, echolocation, and visual modalities guiding flight by the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus

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