Decoding Remapped Spatial Information in the Peri-Saccadic Period

Journal of Neuroscience, vol. 44, pp. e2134232024

Abstract

It has been suggested that, prior to a saccade, visual neurons predictively respond to stimuli that will fall in their receptive fields after completion of the saccade. This saccadic remapping process is thought to compensate for the shift of the visual world across the retina caused by eye movements. To map the timing of this predictive process in the brain, we recorded neural activity using electroencephalography during a saccade task. Human participants (male and female) made saccades between two fixation points while covertly attending to oriented gratings briefly presented at various locations on the screen. Data recorded during trials in which participants maintained fixation were used to train classifiers on stimuli in different positions. Subsequently, data collected during saccade trials were used to test for the presence of remapped stimulus information at the post-saccadic retinotopic location in the peri-saccadic period, providing unique insight into when remapped information becomes available. We found that the stimulus could be decoded at the remapped location ∼180 ms post-stimulus onset, but only when the stimulus was presented 100-200 ms before saccade onset. Within this range, we found that the timing of remapping was dictated by stimulus onset rather than saccade onset. We conclude that presenting the stimulus immediately before the saccade allows for optimal integration of the corollary discharge signal with the incoming peripheral visual information, resulting in a remapping of activation to the relevant post-saccadic retinotopic neurons.

Authors 4

1. Caoimhe Moran

   The University of Melbourne · Hebrew University of Jerusalem

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychology,Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel

   Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia caoimhe@student.unimelb.edu.au

   Cognitive Sciences and Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

   Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

2. Philippa Anne Johnson Aachen Cognitive Psychology Unit Institute of Psychology and Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition

   Leiden University · The University of Melbourne

   Affiliation as printed

   Cognitive Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University, Leiden 2333 AK, The Netherlands

   Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia

   Institute of Psychology & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden University

   Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

3. Ayelet Nina Landau

   Hebrew University of Jerusalem

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel

   Department of Psychology,Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel

   Cognitive Sciences and Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

4. Hinze Hogendoorn

   Queensland University of Technology · The University of Melbourne

   Affiliation as printed

   Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia

   School of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove, Queensland 4059, Australia

   Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

   School of Psychology and Counselling, Queensland University of Technology