Adaptive control of pursuit, vergence and eye torsion in humans: basic and clinical implications

Recent research from our laboratory has been directed at understanding the range of capabilities for adaptive control of eye movements in normal human subjects. For smooth pursuit, different motor responses to the same sensory stimulus (horizontal target motion) can be learned, stored and gated in or out, according to context (vertical eye position). The dynamic properties of the 'open-loop' portion of horizontal, disparity-driven vergence eye movements are under adaptive control. Eye torsion is also subject to adaptive control, including torsional 'phoria adaptation' and cross-coupling of torsion into the horizontal vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR). Finally, lesions of the oculomotor vermis in monkeys produce disordered binocular ocular motor function: 'esodeviations' in the absence of disparity cues, and decreased adaptation of the horizontal phoria to a sustained disparity induced by wearing a horizontal prism in front of one eye.