Perisaccadic Receptive Field Expansion in the Lateral Intraparietal Area

• Published in: Neuron (Cambridge, Mass.) Vol. 90; no. 2; pp. 400 - 409
• Main Authors: Wang, Xiaolan, Fung, C.C. Alan, Guan, Shaobo, Wu, Si, Goldberg, Michael E., Zhang, Mingsha
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 20.04.2016; Elsevier Limited
• Subjects: Animals; Expansion; Macaca mulatta; Models, Neurological; Neurons; Neurons - physiology; Owls; Parietal Lobe - physiology; Photic Stimulation; Retina; Saccades - physiology; Sensory perception; Visual Fields - physiology; Wave division multiplexing
• ISSN: 0896-6273; 1097-4199
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2016.02.035

Humans and monkeys have access to an accurate representation of visual space despite a constantly moving eye. One mechanism by which the brain accomplishes this is by remapping visual receptive fields around the time of a saccade. In this process a neuron can be excited by a probe stimulus in the current receptive field, and also simultaneously by a probe stimulus in the location that will be brought into the neuron’s receptive field by the saccade (the future receptive field), even before saccade begins. Here we show that perisaccadic neuronal excitability is not limited to the current and future receptive fields but encompasses the entire region of visual space across which the current receptive field will be swept by the saccade. A computational model shows that this receptive field expansion is consistent with the propagation of a wave of activity across the cerebral cortex as saccade planning and remapping proceed. •Receptive fields of LIP neurons expand along the saccadic trajectory•A model invoking a cortical wave predicts the extent and timing of expansion Wang et al. found that saccadic remapping in LIP is associated with an expansion of the receptive field along the entire trajectory of the saccade. A cortical wave model of remapping explains this expansion and predicts its extent and timing.