title: Response latencies and event-related potentials during the gap paradigm using saccadic responses in human subjects.
abstract: An experiment was conducted in naive human subjects to measure the time benefits of the latencies of saccadic eye movements to peripheral targets when the offset of a central fixation point precedes the switching on of the peripheral target by 200 ms. Naive subjects produced a shift advancement of the eye movement latencies to the targets with respect to when there is no such temporal gap. Simultaneously, the event-related potentials produced by visual stimuli and saccadic eye movements were recorded. The switching on of the central fixation point induced a negative component that could be considered a contingent negative variation. Subsequently, in the control non-gap condition visual evoked potentials and P300 appear. The temporal gap paradigm induced offset visual-evoked potentials and a frontal negativity; it also induced a higher P300 than the non-gap condition. The saccadic ERPs also showed a frontal negativity preceding the saccade during the gap condition. The results suggest that fast regular saccades during the gap paradigm occur by a priming of premotor and motor frontal circuits indexed by the recorded negativity during the gap paradigm.
authors.affiliation: Laboratorio de Psicobiología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad de Sevilla, Spain. cgomez@obelix.cica.es
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Atienza
authors.forename: G J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Gómez
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vázquez
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015350:Contrast Sensitivity; D004585:Electrooculography; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300 / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012438:Saccades / Q000502:physiology*