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Biomedical subjects

Paul Van Donkelaar

Publications and source records attributed to Paul Van Donkelaar.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

The allocation of attention during smooth pursuit eye movements.

The spatial-temporal allocation of attention during smooth pursuit eye movements is poorly understood. In this chapter we review evidence showing that attention contributes to both saccades and smooth pursuit. We then discuss results from our own recent studies using a dual-task paradigm in which subjects pursued a moving stimulus and pressed a button when targets appeared in the periphery. The results from these studies are consistent with the hypothesis that the allocation of attention is biased to a location just in front of the pursuit stimulus and that this bias can be altered by pursuit velocity.

Attention↗

Cortical frames of reference for eye-hand coordination.

To reach for an object the brain must transform visual input from the eye into motor output of the arm. Recent neurophysiological experiments have shown that this transformation maps onto a network of brain areas including the posterior parietal (PPC) and premotor (PMC) cortices. In this chapter, we review evidence from our own experiments which demonstrate that this network can only partially complete the transformation when the eye and limb movement amplitudes are dissociated. We also discuss the effects of disrupting either the PPC or PMC using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) on the ability to carry out the transformation successfully.

Animals↗