Express-saccades of the monkey: effect of daily training on probability of occurrence and reaction time.
Two monkeys learned to make saccadic eye movements from a central fixation point to a peripheral target, when there was a temporal gap between fixation point offset and target onset. Under these conditions the animals made saccades after extremely short reaction times (less than 100 ms), so called express-saccades. With ongoing training the rate of occurrence increased (10 to 1005) and the reaction time of the express-saccades decreased (95 to 75 ms). The training effects were mediated by the amount of previously executed express-saccades and they were also spatially selective for express-saccades to that target position that had been used during training. The training effects on the express-saccades can be saturated after less than 7 days of daily training and are reversible after another 7 days of no training. The results indicate the existence of a fast-operating visuo-to-oculomotor pathway which can be quickly and reversibly modified by daily exercise.
D000818:Animals; D004525:Efferent Pathways / Q000502:physiology; D005133:Eye Movements; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D008253:Macaca mulatta; D009046:Motor Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology*; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology; D012438:Saccades; D014794:Visual Fields; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology