Graduate Program in Neuroscience, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
J Neurophysiol. 2013 May;109(10):2560-70. doi: 10.1152/jn.01000.2012. Epub 2013 Feb 27.
It has been previously shown that small- and large-amplitude saccades have different functions during vision in natural environments. Large saccades are associated with reaching movements toward objects, whereas small saccades facilitate the identification of more detailed object features necessary for successful grasping and manual manipulation. To determine whether these represent dichotomous processing streams, we used resting-state functional MRI to examine the functional connectivity patterns of the medial and lateral frontal eye field (FEF) regions that encode large- and small-amplitude saccades, respectively. We found that the spontaneous blood oxygen level-dependent signals of the medial FEF were functionally correlated with areas known to be involved in reaching movements and executive control processes, whereas lateral FEF was functionally correlated with cortical areas involved in object processing and in grasping, fixation, and manipulation of objects. The results provide strong evidence for two distinct visuomotor network systems in the primate brain that likely reflect the alternating phases of vision for action in natural environments.
先前的研究表明，在自然环境中的视觉中，小幅度和大幅度扫视具有不同的功能。大幅度扫视与朝向物体的伸手动作有关，而小幅度扫视则有助于识别成功抓取和手动操作所需的更详细的物体特征。为了确定这些是否代表二分处理流，我们使用静息状态功能磁共振成像来检查分别编码大幅度和小幅度扫视的内侧和外侧额眼区（FEF）的功能连接模式。我们发现，内侧 FEF 的自发血氧水平依赖信号在功能上与已知参与伸手运动和执行控制过程的区域相关，而外侧 FEF 则与涉及物体处理以及物体抓取、固定和操作的皮质区域相关。研究结果为灵长类动物大脑中的两个不同的视觉运动网络系统提供了有力证据，这可能反映了在自然环境中进行动作的视觉交替阶段。
