部門公開セミナー

本セミナーは英語で行われます。

Vision is an active process that depends on the positions of the eyes. Although the eye positions of mice occasionally change through saccades, it is unclear whether these saccades can be made voluntarily, and if so whether

they are mediated by the cerebral cortex. Here, we investigated the cortical control of saccades in mice by training them to perform voluntary eye movements. During the task, mice moved their eyes in a binocularly coupled fashion, even though the training was always performed on the left eye. A small portion of frontal cortex (frontal eye field, FEF) was identified, through microstimulation and optogenetic inhibition, to be responsible for binocularly-coupled contraversive saccades. In vivo two-photon calcium imaging revealed that the neurons in this area tend to be

more active during contraversive saccades. However, this role of FEF on contraversive saccades is not fixed but can be modified to adapt to a new environment. Our data indicate that the cortical control of voluntary saccades is dynamic in mice, ensuring the capacity to explore the natural environment through eye movements.