Neuronal responses in the cortical area MSTd during smooth pursuit and ocular following eye movements

Abstract

The motion sensitive medial superior temporal (MST) area has been implicated in a variety of functions such as smooth pursuit (SP) generation, self-motion perception, and coding of visual target motion. For self-motion perception, the dorsal part of MST (MSTd) is crucial [1], e.g., neurons in MSTd respond to optic flow simulating selfmotion. However, about 35% of MSTd neurons also respond to smooth pursuit eye movements, which is difficult to reconcile in the context of self-motion perception. Here, we examined neuronal responses of 55 pursuit-sensitive MSTd neurons recorded in two awake macaque monkeys [2], and related these responses to a computational model of the smooth pursuit system [3].