Stephen Lisberger

Research Interests

Visual and vestibular control of eye movements.

Research Summary

My laboratory studies two aspects of the control of eye movements in awake behaving monkeys and human subjects:

(1) the vestibulo-ocular reflex(VOR) normally generates eye movement equal in amplitude and opposite in direction to head movement, to stabilize the visual scene during head turns. We have magnifying spectacles to modify the gain of the VOR(eye velocity divided by head velocity) and we have provided physiological and computational evidence that synaptic modifications in the brainstem and cerebellar cortex mediate the changes in VOR gain. We are now investigating the site and nature of the synaptic changes in more detail.

(2) Smooth pursuit eye movements allow primates to move the eyes smoothly to track small moving objects across a stationery background. We have used behavioral methods to analyze the properties of visual inputs for pursuit and found that models of pursuit require inputs related to both image velocity and acceleration to emit eye movements with the correct dynamics. We have found a representation of image motion in MT is converted into a command for eye movement. Other current questions include analysis of the neural changes the mediate learning in pursuit, and a investigation of how the brain implements a "switch" that appears to determine the gain of visual-motor transmission depending on whether the monkey is fixating a stationary target or tracking a moving one.

Selected Publications

Schoppik, D. and Lisberger S.G. (2006) Saccades exert spatial control of motion processing for smooth pursuit eye movements. J. Neurosci. 26: 7607-7618.

Priebe, N.J., Lisberger, S.G., and Movshon, J.A. (2006) The neural representation of stimulus speed in macaque primary visual cortex. J. Neurosci. 26: 2941-2950.

Osborne, L.C., Lisberger, S.G., and Bialek, W. (2005) A sensory source for motor variation. Nature. 437: 412-416.

Carey, M.C., Medina, J., and Lisberger, S.G. (2005) Instructive signals for motor learning from visual cortical area MT. Nature Neurosci. 8: 813-819

Medina, J., Carey, M.C., and Lisberger, S.G. (2005) Representation of time in motor control. Neuron 45: 157-167.

Tanaka, M. and Lisberger, S.G. (2001) Regulation of the gain of visually-guided smooth pursuit eye movements by frontal cortex. Nature, 409: 191-194.