Gaze influences finger movement-related and visual-related activation across the human brain

Abstract

The brain uses gaze orientation to organize myriad spatial tasks including hand movements. However, the neural correlates of gaze signals and their interaction with brain systems for arm movement control remain unresolved. Many studies have shown that gaze orientation modifies neuronal spike discharge in monkeys and activation in humans related to reaching and finger movements in parietal and frontal areas. To continue earlier studies that addressed interaction of horizontal gaze and hand movements in humans (Baker et al. 1999), we assessed how horizontal and vertical gaze deviations modified finger-related activation, hypothesizing that areas throughout the brain would exhibit movement-related activation that depended on gaze angle. The results indicated finger movement-related activation related to combinations of horizontal, vertical, and diagonal gaze deviations. We extended our prior findings to observation of these gaze-dependent effects in visual cortex, parietal cortex, motor, supplementary motor area, putamen, and cerebellum. Most significantly, we found a modulation bias for increased activation toward rightward, upper-right and vertically upward gaze deviations. Our results indicate that gaze modulation of finger movement-related regions in the human brain is spatially organized and could subserve sensorimotor transformations.

Neural Coding of Movement Direction in the Healthy Human Brain

“…The ability to maintain visual fixation during the task was necessary to ensure that measured brain activity was related to movements of the arm rather than the eyes (cf. [17] ). Thus, although eye-tracking was not possible during fMRI data-acquisition, the extensive training described below made it unlikely that participants made eye movement during the actual fMRI-A movement task.…”

Frontoparietal involvement in passively guided shape and length discrimination: a comparison between subcortical stroke patients and healthy controls

“…Patients might need to remain more alert in remembering spatial locations, reflected by angular gyrus involvement (Thimm et al 2006). The left superior lingual gyrus is involved in finger-related activation as gaze deviates rightward (x = -13, y = -72, z = 0) and in horizontal and vertical dimensions (x = -9, y = -77, z = 14) (Bédard et al 2008). These coordinates are close to the ones obtained in our findings (x = -18, y = -76, z = -12).…”

Gaze and viewing angle influence visual stabilization of upright posture

“…In literature, this angle is defined by two vectors, the first connecting the eye with the observed target, and the second formed by the line projected horizontally and straight ahead at eye level ( Schmidt et al 1993 ; Vaillancourt et al 2006 ; Shieh and Lee 2007 ). Viewing a target under different angular perspectives modulates neural signal processing in multiple brain areas involved in planning and preparing movement ( Baker et al 1999 ; DeSouza et al 2000 ; Bédard et al 2008 ) and affects various parameters of postural and motor tasks performance. For example, standing and focusing gaze on a target presented above and below horizontal eye level has been reported to reduce oscillations of upright posture ( Kapoula and Lê 2006 ).…”