Single‐neuron evidence for a contribution of the dorsal pontine nuclei to both types of target‐directed eye movements, saccades and smooth‐pursuit

The primate dorsolateral pontine nucleus (DLPN) is a key link in a cerebro-cerebellar pathway for smooth pursuit eye movements, a pathway assumed to be anatomically segregated from tegmental circuits subserving saccades. However, the existence of afferents from several cerebrocortical and subcortical centres for saccades suggests that the DLPN and neighbouring parts of the dorsal pontine nuclei (DPN) might contribute to saccades as well. In order to test this hypothesis, we recorded from the DPN of two monkeys trained to perform smooth pursuit eye movements as well as visually and memory-guided saccades. Out of 281 neurons isolated from the DPN, 138 were responsive in oculomotor tasks. Forty-five were exclusively activated in saccade paradigms, 68 exclusively by smooth pursuit and 25 neurons showed responses in both. Pursuit-related responses reflected sensitivity to eye position, velocity or combinations of velocity and position with minor contributions of acceleration in many cases. When tested in the memory-guided saccades paradigm, 65 out of 70 neurons activated in saccade paradigms showed significant saccade-related bursts and 20 significant activity in the memory period. Our finding of saccade-related activity in the DPN in conjunction with the existence of strong anatomical input from saccade-related cerebrocortical areas suggests that the DPN serves as a precerebellar relay for both pursuit and saccade-related information originating from cerebral cortex, in addition to the classical tecto-tegmental circuitry for saccades.