Saccadic Eye Movements: Basic Neural Processes

International audienceThe sudden appearance of an object in the visual field triggers an orienting shift of gaze toward its location. This movement consists of an extremely rapid rotation of the two eyes, the saccade. In this article, instead of describing the paths leading from the target-evoked retinal activity to the changes in muscle tension that rotate the eyes, we take the reverse path. Starting from the muscle contractions, we proceed upstream and describe the basic neural and functional mechanisms involved in generating commands that permit the eyes and, therefore, the foveae to visually capture the location of an event