Effects of lesions of the cerebellar oculomotor vermis on eye movements in primate: binocular control

Abstract

The effects of lesions of the dorsal 'oculomotor' cerebellar vermis on binocular oculomotor functions in three monkeys were examined. Prominent findings included (1) a convergence bias during monocular fixation, i.e., an 'esodeviation' in the absence of disparity cues, (2) a loss of comitancy, i.e., alignment varies more with orbital position, (3) abnormal saccade yoking producing saccade disconjugacy, and (4) defects in prism-induced phoria adaptation. There was also a suggestion of a disturbance in the dynamic properties of disparity-induced vergence. These findings point to a role for the 'oculomotor' vermis in binocular aspects of the control of eye movements.