Role of the Lateral Mesencephalic Reticular Formation in the Control of Head Movements

Abstract It is possible to consider that there are two types of combined eye and head movements involved in two behavioral strategies. In one, the objective of slow eye movements is to compensate head movements. For that aim, the eyes move in the direction opposite to head turning, stabilizing the visual world on the retina. In the second strategy, the eyes and the head rapidly move in the same direction in order to orient the gaze toward a visual stimulus or a particular direction of space but without any strict fixation constraint. Compared to the former, the rapid eye movement can be characterized as anticompensatory because the eyes move in the same direction as the head.