Experimental Psychology, Helmholtz Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Neuropsychologia. 2012 Jan;50(1):198-203. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2011.11.020. Epub 2011 Dec 6.
The current study investigated the role of the frontal eye fields (FEF) in the suppression of an unwanted eye movement ('oculomotor inhibition'). Oculomotor inhibition has generally been investigated using the antisaccade task, in which an eye movement to a task-relevant onset must be inhibited. Various lines of research have suggested that successful inhibition in the antisaccade task relies heavily on the FEF. Here, we tested whether the FEF are also involved in the oculomotor inhibition of reflexive saccades. To this end, we used the oculomotor capture task in which the to-be-inhibited element is task-irrelevant. Performance of four patients with lesions to the FEF was measured on both the antisaccade and oculomotor capture task. In both tasks, the majority of the patients made more erroneous eye movements to contralesional elements than to ipsilesional elements. One patient showed no deficits in the antisaccade task, which could be explained by the developmental origin of his lesion. While we confirm the role of the FEF in the inhibition of task-relevant elements, the current study also reveals that the FEF play a crucial role in the oculomotor inhibition of task-irrelevant elements.
本研究探讨了额眼区（FEF）在抑制不想要的眼球运动（“眼动抑制”）中的作用。眼动抑制通常使用反扫视任务进行研究，在该任务中，必须抑制对任务相关起始的眼球运动。各种研究表明，反扫视任务中的成功抑制严重依赖于 FEF。在这里，我们测试了 FEF 是否也参与了反射性扫视的眼动抑制。为此，我们使用了眼动捕获任务，其中要抑制的元素与任务无关。我们在反扫视和眼动捕获任务上测量了 4 名 FEF 损伤患者的表现。在这两个任务中，大多数患者向对侧元素的错误眼球运动比向同侧元素的错误眼球运动更多。一名患者在反扫视任务中没有表现出任何缺陷，这可以用他的损伤的起源来解释。虽然我们证实了 FEF 在抑制任务相关元素中的作用，但本研究还揭示了 FEF 在抑制任务无关元素的眼动中起着至关重要的作用。
