Frontal projections of dorsal neck and extraocular muscles

Abstract

We investigated the projection sites of dorsal neck muscle afferents in cats anesthetized with chloralose urethane. Electrical stimulation of a nerve branch to the biventer cervicis and complexus, and nerve branches of the suboccipital nerve to the rectus capitis dorsalis major and to the obliquus capitis caudalis muscles evoked field and single-cell responses in frontal brain regions corresponding with frontal eye field regions in cats, at latencies of 6 to 15 ms. By recording afferent volleys from dorsal rootlets of the first and second cervical segments, it was shown that neuronal activity in frontal brain regions could be elicited by signals from fibers electrophysiologically characterized as belonging to group I. Electrical stimulation of the nerve of the superior rectus muscle also elicited short-latency (6 to 20 ms) field and single-cell activity in the frontal eye field regions. Moreover, a high degree of convergence was observed at the single-cell level between dorsal neck and extraocular muscle afferents. This convergence was significantly higher than the convergence observed between the rectus capitis dorsalis major and obliquus capitis caudalis (deep muscles) with the biventer cervicis and complexus muscles. The convergence of extraocular and dorsal neck muscle afferents onto frontal eye field regions isuggests an involvement of these cortical regions in mechanisms related with coordination of sequential eye-head movements.

Saccadic reaction times during isometric voluntary contraction of the shoulder girdle elevators and vibration stimulation to the trapezius

“…Further, vibration stimulation to neck muscles has been shown to induce visual illusion (Biguer et al 1988;Taylor and McCloskey 1991). In the visual illusion, Roll et al (1991) attached great importance to the report of Dubrovsky and Barbas (1977), which stated that the aerent information from the neck muscles projected to the frontal eye ®eld. Grantyn and Berthoz (1987) and Berthoz (1996), however, both proposed that eerent signals from the higher nervous system synergistically regulate the activity of neck muscles and eye movement.…”

“…Vibratory stimulation of muscles also allows for the recognition of increases in muscle aerent information (Hagbarth and Vallbo 1968;Burke et al 1976a, b;Roll et al 1989). Muscle sensory information from the neck muscles projects to the neural pathway controlling eye movement, directly and/or via the brainstem reticular formation (Dubrovsky and Barbas 1977;Hinoki 1985;Role et al 1991). Biguer et al (1988) also reported that vibration of the posterior muscles of the neck produced the illusion of displacement and the motion of a visual target when the target was presented with no visual background.…”

The Effect of Cervical Spine Manipulation on Postural Sway in Patients With Nonspecific Neck Pain

“…Anatomical and physiological studies of the cervical spine suggest that the upper cervical region may make a greater contribution to the postural control system than lower levels. In particular, it has been noted that the numerous connections that exist between cervical afferents and the vestibular, visual and reflex subsystems that contribute to head and eye orientation as well as postural control, arise predominantly from the upper cervical region (Barmack, 2003;Dubrovsky & Barbas, 1977;Liu et al, 2003;Morningstar et al, 2005;Rose, Wainwright, & Neuber-Hess, 1992;Shinoda, Ohgaki, Sugiuchi, & Futami, 1989). In addition, it has been found that the muscles of the suboccipital region possess far greater numbers of proprioceptive muscle spindles than the deep musculature of the lower cervical spine.…”

Representation of Horizontal Head-on-Body Position in the Primate Superior Colliculus

“…However, preliminary reports describe a modulating influence of head-on-body position in the smoothpursuit-related area of the FEF (Fukushima 2007) and neural activity within the saccade-related area of FEF is gain-modulated by eye-in-head position (Cassanello and Ferrera 2007a). The feline homologue of the FEF also receives afferent information from neck muscles (Barbas and Dubrovsky 1980;Dubrovsky and Barbas 1977), making it possible that the FEF may also provide head-on-body signals to the SC.…”