Transient torsion during and after saccades
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Updated: Nov 6, 2026

Investigating the Deployment of Visual Attention Before Accurate and Averaging Saccades via Eye Tracking and Assessment of Visual Sensitivity
Published on: March 18, 2019
D Straumann1, D S Zee, D Solomon
1Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA.
Abstract:
In five normal subjects, we analyzed uncalled for torsion (blips) during and after horizontal and vertical saccades. Torsion was defined as movement out of Listing's plane. During horizontal saccades in downward gaze the abducting eye extorted and the adducting eye intorted. The direction of the blips reversed in upward gaze. Peak torsional amplitudes (up to 1-2 deg) were always reached during saccades; drifts back to Listing's plane outlasted the saccades. Torsion of the extorting eye was larger than that of the intorting eye, producing a transient positive cyclovergence. Torsion and cyclovergence evoked by vertical saccades were also stereotyped in each eye, but showed idiosyncratic differences among subjects. We conclude that Listing's law is violated during saccades. Transient saccade-evoked torsion might reflect properties of the three-dimensional velocity-to-position integrator and/or the ocular plant.
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