Mechanisms underlying the generation of miniature eye movement and its contribution on visual functions

Fixation, holding one\u27s eyes on an object, plays a key role in the perception of visual scenes. The eyes are continuously fluctuating, even during fixation where the eyes seem still. The fluctuations are called miniature eye movements and consist of microsaccades, drifts, and tremors. It has been revealed that these miniature eye movements aid our vision; they improve the visibility of high spatial frequency components, and prevent retinal adaptation during fixation. Although the functional roles of the miniature eye movements have gradually been uncovered, their generation mechanism and details of their contribution on the visual functions remain a mystery. Here, I focus on the microsaccade while reviewing the related neuronal circuit and generation mechanisms from the viewpoint of neurophysiology and computational neuroscience. Also, I report the latest evidence for the contribution of the miniature eye movement on visual signal processing