Single-Unit Activity in the Primate Nucleus Reticularis Tegmenti Pontis
Related to Vergence and Ocular Accommodation.
Gamlin, P. D. R., and R. J. Clarke.
Department of Physiological Optics, School of Optometry, University of
Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294.
APStracts 2:0062N, 1995.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
1 . In the present study we used single-unit recording techniques in alert
rhesus monkeys to investigate a precerebellar nucleus, the nucleus reticularis
tegmenti pontis (NRTP), for neurons related to vergence and ocular
accommodation. 2 . Using single-unit recording in the medial NRTP, we
identified 32 cells with activity that linearly increased with increases in
the amplitude of the near response and 33 cells with activity that linearly
increased with increases in the amplitude of the far response. These near and
far response neurons were often encountered close to neurons displaying
saccade-related activity, but their activity was related neither to saccadic
nor to smooth pursuit eye movements. Microstimulation at the site of near or
far response neurons often produced changes in vergence angle and
accommodation. 3 . The NRTP is known to receive cortical afferents and to
have reciprocal connections with the cerebellum; therefore it is likely that
the near and far response neurons in the medial NRTP form part of a
cerebropontocerebellar pathway modulating or controlling vergence and ocular
accommodation.
Received 20 December 1994; accepted in final form 9 February 1995.
APS Manuscript Number J794-4.
Article publication pending J. Neurophysiol.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 3 April 1995.