The Updating of the Representation of Visual Space in Parietal Cortex by Intended Eye Movements

TLDR

Eye movements shift the retinal image, and the receptive field of visual neurons moves with the eyes, so that after a saccade each neuron samples a new region of visual space. Parietal neurons transiently shift their receptive fields before saccades and fire when a previously flashed stimulus is brought into view, indicating that parietal cortex anticipates retinal changes and updates remembered stimulus locations to maintain a continuous visual map.

Abstract

Every eye movement produces a shift in the visual image on the retina. The receptive field, or retinal response area, of an individual visual neuron moves with the eyes so that after an eye movement it covers a new portion of visual space. For some parietal neurons, the location of the receptive field is shown to shift transiently before an eye movement. In addition, nearly all parietal neurons respond when an eye movement brings the site of a previously flashed stimulus into the receptive field. Parietal cortex both anticipates the retinal consequences of eye movements and updates the retinal coordinates of remembered stimuli to generate a continuously accurate representation of visual space.