Control of eye movements and spatial attention

Moore, Tirin; Fallah, Mazyar

doi:10.1073/pnas.98.3.1273

Cited by 534 publications

(236 citation statements)

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“…The premotor theory of attention (Rizzolatti et al, 1987) asserts that the attentional orienting is equivalent to an eye movement planning; it just corresponds to a below-threshold activation of saccade motor programs. Actually, brain imaging (Corbetta et al, 1998;Nobre et al, 2000;Nobre et al, 1997), behavioral (Sheliga et al, 1995a,b;Sheliga et al, 1994), neurophysiological (Moore and Fallah, 2001) and neurological (Heide and Kompf, 1998;Heilman et al, 1993) studies provided evidence that covert orienting of spatial attention and planning eye movements are strictly linked both at functional and anatomical levels. In order to investigate this topic, we studied eventrelated power modulations before visually guided saccades, namely voluntary saccades internally triggered towards a target presented laterally in the visual field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Event-related power modulations of brain activity preceding visually guided saccades

et al. 2007

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To analyze the characteristics of the event-related desynchronization (ERD) and synchronization (ERS) of cortical rhythms during the preparation and execution of a lateralized eye movement, EEG was recorded in normal subjects during a visually guided task. Alpha and beta bands were investigated in three temporal intervals: a sensory period, a delay period and a saccade preparation period time locked with saccade onset. Modulations of ERD/ERS power, coupled with the task, reached the largest amplitudes over the frontal and parieto-occipital regions. Differences of oscillatory activity in the alpha bands revealed an intriguing pattern of asymmetry in parieto-occipital areas. Rightward saccades induced a larger desynchronization with respect to the leftward saccades in the left hemisphere, but not in the right. If representative, these findings are congruent to the established righthemisphere dominance of the brain areas that direct attention. Moreover differences between the two alpha types emerged in the frontal areas before and during the saccade preparation periods, indicative of differential engagement of these areas depending on the task demands. In conclusion, the present approach shows that planning eye movements is linked with covert orienting of spatial attention and may supply a useful method for studying eye movements and selective attention-related processes. IntroductionSaccades are short duration ballistic eye movements performed in order to foveate an image on the retina. They are generated in the brain stem, but there is extensive evidence from electrophysiological studies in monkeys (Bruce and Goldberg, 1985;Funahashi et al., 1989;Funahashi et al., 1990;Lynch et al., 1977;Schlag and Schlag-Rey, 1987) as well as from neuroimaging (Anderson et al., 1994;Fox et al., 1985;Law et al., 1997;Luna et al., 1998;Sweeney et al., 1996) and lesion studies in humans (Pierrot-Deseilligny et al., 2003a;Pierrot-Deseilligny et al., 1991b) that the cerebral cortex is involved in their control and preparation. Three main cortical areas are involved in the generation of saccades: the frontal eye field (FEF), located mostly at the intersection between the precentral sulcus and the superior frontal sulcus (Paus, 1996), the supplementary eye field (SEF), located on the medial surface of the superior frontal gyrus (Grosbras et al., 1999) and the parietal eye field (PEF), located in the intraparietal sulcus (Medendorp et al., 2003). These areas contribute to the triggering of saccades with, apparently, different roles depending on the type of saccade to be performed. Actually, saccades may be reflexive, externally

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Event-related power modulations of brain activity preceding visually guided saccades

et al. 2007

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“…There is evidence that activating monkey FEF using microstimulation is sufficient to bias attention (Armstrong et al, 2006;Armstrong & Moore, 2007;Moore & Fallah, 2001), but this bias is unlikely to originate from the specific activation of neurons involved in motor preparation as compelling neurophysiological evidence suggests that covert attention and saccade control are mediated by separate neuronal populations in FEF (Juan et al, 2008;Juan et al, 2004;Sato & Schall, 2003;Thompson et al, 1997;Thompson et al, 2005). Furthermore, it is probable that the perceptual enhancements observed at saccade goals prior to saccade execution are driven by the mechanisms which ensure the maintenance of perceptual stability which do not operate when no saccade is executed (Duhamel et 30 al., 1992;Khan et al, 2009).…”

Section: An Alternative Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Premotor theory of attention: Time to move on?

2012

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractSpatial attention and eye-movements are tightly coupled, but the precise nature of this coupling is controversial. The influential but controversial Premotor theory of attention makes four specific predictions about the relationship between motor preparation and spatial attention. Firstly, spatial attention and motor preparation use the same neural substrates. Secondly, spatial attention is functionally equivalent to planning goal directed actions such as eye-movements (i.e. planning an action is both necessary and sufficient for a shift of spatial attention). Thirdly, planning a goal directed action with any effector system is sufficient to trigger a shift of spatial attention. Fourthly, the eye-movement system has a privileged role in orienting visual spatial attention. This article reviews empirical studies that have tested these predictions. Contrary to predictions one and two there is evidence of anatomical and functional dissociations between endogenous spatial attention and motor preparation. However, there is compelling evidence that exogenous attention is reliant on activation of the oculomotor system. With respect to the third prediction, there is correlational evidence that spatial attention is directed to the endpoint of goal-directed actions but no direct evidence that this attention shift is dependent on motor preparation. The few studies to have directly tested the fourth prediction have produced conflicting results, so the extent to which the oculomotor system has a privileged role in spatial attention remains unclear. Overall, the evidence is not consistent with the view that spatial attention is functionally equivalent to motor preparation so the Premotor theory should be rejected, although a limited version of the Premotor theory in which only exogenous attention is dependent on motor preparation may still be tenable. A plausible alternative account is that activity in the motor system contributes to biased competition between different sensory representations with the winner of the competition becoming the attended item.

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“…Cognitive neuroscience provides a useful framework for understanding mechanisms that support automatic and voluntary attention (1) and how disturbances in these processes may contribute to problems in the executive control of behavior (2). The linkage between oculomotor and attentional brain systems (3,4) make eye movement paradigms particularly relevant for investigating mechanisms of attentional and inhibitory control deficits in schizophrenia (5).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reduced Attentional Engagement Contributes to Deficits in Prefrontal Inhibitory Control in Schizophrenia

Reilly

Harris

Khine

et al. 2008

Biological Psychiatry

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BACKGROUND-Problems with the voluntary control of behavior, such as those leading to increased antisaccade errors, are accepted as evidence of prefrontal dysfunction in schizophrenia. We previously reported that speeded prosaccade responses, i.e. shorter response latencies for automatic shifts of attention to visual targets, were associated with higher antisaccade error rates in schizophrenia. This suggests that dysregulation of automatic attentional processes may contribute to disturbances in prefrontally-mediated control of voluntary behavior.

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Control of eye movements and spatial attention

Cited by 534 publications

References 25 publications

Event-related power modulations of brain activity preceding visually guided saccades

Event-related power modulations of brain activity preceding visually guided saccades

The Premotor theory of attention: Time to move on?

Reduced Attentional Engagement Contributes to Deficits in Prefrontal Inhibitory Control in Schizophrenia

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