{"title":"The unknown but knowable relationship between Presaccadic Accumulation of activity and Saccade initiation.","authors":"Jeffrey D Schall, Martin Paré","doi":"10.1007/s10827-021-00784-7","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The goal of this short review is to call attention to a yawning gap of knowledge that separates two processes essential for saccade production. On the one hand, knowledge about the saccade generation circuitry within the brainstem is detailed and precise - push-pull interactions between gaze-shifting and gaze-holding processes control the time of saccade initiation, which begins when omnipause neurons are inhibited and brainstem burst neurons are excited. On the other hand, knowledge about the cortical and subcortical premotor circuitry accomplishing saccade initiation has crystalized around the concept of stochastic accumulation - the accumulating activity of saccade neurons reaching a fixed value triggers a saccade. Here is the gap: we do not know how the reaching of a threshold by premotor neurons causes the critical pause and burst of brainstem neurons that initiates saccades. Why this problem matters and how it can be addressed will be discussed. Closing the gap would unify two rich but curiously disconnected empirical and theoretical domains.</p>","PeriodicalId":54857,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Computational Neuroscience","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.5000,"publicationDate":"2021-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10827-021-00784-7","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Computational Neuroscience","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10827-021-00784-7","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2021/3/12 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"MATHEMATICAL & COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
The goal of this short review is to call attention to a yawning gap of knowledge that separates two processes essential for saccade production. On the one hand, knowledge about the saccade generation circuitry within the brainstem is detailed and precise - push-pull interactions between gaze-shifting and gaze-holding processes control the time of saccade initiation, which begins when omnipause neurons are inhibited and brainstem burst neurons are excited. On the other hand, knowledge about the cortical and subcortical premotor circuitry accomplishing saccade initiation has crystalized around the concept of stochastic accumulation - the accumulating activity of saccade neurons reaching a fixed value triggers a saccade. Here is the gap: we do not know how the reaching of a threshold by premotor neurons causes the critical pause and burst of brainstem neurons that initiates saccades. Why this problem matters and how it can be addressed will be discussed. Closing the gap would unify two rich but curiously disconnected empirical and theoretical domains.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Computational Neuroscience provides a forum for papers that fit the interface between computational and experimental work in the neurosciences. The Journal of Computational Neuroscience publishes full length original papers, rapid communications and review articles describing theoretical and experimental work relevant to computations in the brain and nervous system. Papers that combine theoretical and experimental work are especially encouraged. Primarily theoretical papers should deal with issues of obvious relevance to biological nervous systems. Experimental papers should have implications for the computational function of the nervous system, and may report results using any of a variety of approaches including anatomy, electrophysiology, biophysics, imaging, and molecular biology. Papers investigating the physiological mechanisms underlying pathologies of the nervous system, or papers that report novel technologies of interest to researchers in computational neuroscience, including advances in neural data analysis methods yielding insights into the function of the nervous system, are also welcomed (in this case, methodological papers should include an application of the new method, exemplifying the insights that it yields).It is anticipated that all levels of analysis from cognitive to cellular will be represented in the Journal of Computational Neuroscience.