Biomaterial Database

When your eyes see more than you do. 2010

Abtine Tavassoli, and Dario L Ringach

Departments of Neurobiology and Psychology, Jules Stein Eye Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.

Visual information is used by the brain to construct a conscious experience of the visual world and to guide motor actions [1]. Here we report a study of how eye movements and perception relate to each other. We compared the ability of human observers to perceive image motion with the reliability of their eyes to track the motion of a target [2], [3] and [4], the goal being to test whether both motor and sensory processes are based on the same set of signals and limited by a shared source of noise [2] and [4]. We found that the oculomotor system can detect fluctuations in the velocity of a moving target better than the observer. Surprisingly, in some conditions, eye movements reliably respond to the velocity fluctuations of a moving target that are otherwise perceptually invisible to the subjects. The implication is that visual motion signals exist in the brain that can be used to guide motor actions without evoking a perceptual outcome nor being accessible to conscious scrutiny.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D009039	Motion Perception	The real or apparent movement of objects through the visual field.	Movement Perception,Perception, Motion,Perception, Movement
D009802	Oculomotor Nerve	The 3d cranial nerve. The oculomotor nerve sends motor fibers to the levator muscles of the eyelid and to the superior rectus, inferior rectus, and inferior oblique muscles of the eye. It also sends parasympathetic efferents (via the ciliary ganglion) to the muscles controlling pupillary constriction and accommodation. The motor fibers originate in the oculomotor nuclei of the midbrain.	Cranial Nerve III,Third Cranial Nerve,Nerve III,Nervus Oculomotorius,Cranial Nerve IIIs,Cranial Nerve, Third,Cranial Nerves, Third,Nerve IIIs,Nerve, Oculomotor,Nerve, Third Cranial,Nerves, Oculomotor,Nerves, Third Cranial,Oculomotor Nerves,Oculomotorius, Nervus,Third Cranial Nerves
D010775	Photic Stimulation	Investigative technique commonly used during ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY in which a series of bright light flashes or visual patterns are used to elicit brain activity.	Stimulation, Photic,Visual Stimulation,Photic Stimulations,Stimulation, Visual,Stimulations, Photic,Stimulations, Visual,Visual Stimulations
D011698	Pursuit, Smooth	Eye movements that are slow, continuous, and conjugate and occur when a fixed object is moved slowly.	Pursuits, Smooth,Smooth Pursuit,Smooth Pursuits
D005133	Eye Movements	Voluntary or reflex-controlled movements of the eye.	Eye Movement,Movement, Eye,Movements, Eye
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man