Cerebrocerebellar Circuits for the Perceptual Cancellation of Eye-movement-induced Retinal Image Motion

Abstract

Despite smooth pursuit eye movements, we are unaware of resultant retinal image motion. This example of perceptual invariance is achieved by comparing retinal image slip with an internal reference signal predicting the sensory consequences of the eye movement. This prediction can be manipulated experimentally, allowing one to vary the amount of self-induced image motion for which the reference signal compensates and, accordingly, the resulting percept of motion. Here we were able to map regions in CRUS I within the lateral cerebellar hemispheres that exhibited a significant correlation between functional magnetic resonance imaging signal amplitudes and the amount of motion predicted by the reference signal. The fact that these cerebellar regions were found to be functionally coupled with the left parieto-insular cortex and the supplementary eye fields points to these cortical areas as the sites of interaction between predicted and experienced sensory events, ultimately giving rise to the perception of a stable world despite self-induced retinal motion.

Unravelling cerebellar pathways with high temporal precision targeting motor and extensive sensory and parietal networks

“…By the same token, monkey visual motion processing area VPS (visual posterior sylvian area) (corresponding to area 7 op in the atlas 23 ) is assumed to take a prediction of the visual consequences of smooth pursuit eye movements into account to generate a veridical percept of motion in the world 50 . Visual motion area (PIVC), most probably the human counterpart of monkey area VPS, has also been implicated in using sensory prediction as well as to acquire this information from the posterolateral cerebellum 51 . Th ese examples, illustrating the role of precise and continuously updated sensory predictions, make it clear that the demonstration of fast and precise cerebellar input to large parts of sensory and motor regions of cerebral cortex is in full accordance with the assumed role of the cerebellum in optimal sensory prediction.…”

Effective Connectivity of the Human Cerebellum during Visual Attention

“…According to these considerations, the cerebellum would be of great importance to support the detection of prediction errors and thereby supporting predictive coding (Rao and Ballard, 1999;Langner et al, 2012;Schlerf et al, 2012). On a perceptual level, crus I has previously been associated with the cancellation of eye-movement-induced retinal image motion (Lindner et al, 2006), which might support the possible role of the cerebellum in predictive coding during visual processing.…”

I move, therefore I am: A new theoretical framework to investigate agency and ownership

“…The acquisition and adaptation of the internal predictions (which are entered into the comparison process together with the sensory afferences) can be described as the result of an ''internalization" process of one's own causal relationships to the world: The representation of stable systematic sensorimotor contingencies between a certain action and its corresponding effect, which is learned in the preceding stage of registration of action-effect-couplings, can be used to build up an internal prediction of an action effect that is issued whenever an action is initiated (Synofzik, Thier, & Lindner, 2006;. If the action effect matches the prediction, the prediction is preserved; if the action effect differs slightly over a constant sequence of actions, the prediction is recalibrated accordingly (neurophysiological evidence for this mechanism was given for electric fish (Bell, 2001), crickets (Poulet & Hedwig, 2002) and also for humans (Haarmeier, Bunjes, Lindner, Berret, & Thier, 2001;Lindner, Haarmeier, Erb, Grodd, & Thier, 2006;Synofzik, Thier, & Lindner, 2006)). The more systematic the contingencies between action and action effect, the more stable and reliable the internal predictions about the upcoming sensory effects of one's own actions and the better a system's capacity to differentiate between self-produced and non-self-produced actions.…”