Effects of reversible inactivation of unilateral frontal pursuit areas on the adaptation of post-saccadic smooth pursuit velocity in the monkeys

Abstract

Repetitive exposures to the acceleration of the target velocity for a brief period immediately after the onsets of the eye movements adaptively modify the velocity of smooth pursuit. After we located monkey frontal pursuit areas by unit recording and microstimulation, we injected GABA_A-receptor agonist muscimol locally. Inactivation of frontal pursuit areas reduced velocities of smooth pursuit in both ipsi and contra -versive directions to the inactivated frontal eye field by 70%, and significantly depressed the adaptation of smooth pursuit velocity dependent on the sites of inactivation. These results suggest that the frontal pursuit areas are involved in the adaptation of smooth pursuit. [J Physiol Sci. 2006;56 Suppl:S188]