Ocular torsion measured by TV- and scanning laser ophthalmoscopy during horizontal pursuit in humans and monkeys.

Ocular torsion during horizontal foveal pursuit and fixation was measured in five human subjects and two trained monkeys (Macaca fascicularis) by direct analysis of the ocular fundus rotation. In the monkeys the fundus images of either eye were generated with a TV-ophthalmoscope while the contralateral eye pursued an 8' visual target moving sinusoidally (0.3-0.9 Hz, +/- 5 degrees) in the horizontal plane. In the humans a scanning laser ophthalmoscope (SLO) generated the fundus image of the ipsilateral eye, which pursued the visual target (same parameters as in the monkeys) mixed electronically into the laser scan raster. The image sequences were stored on videotape and subjected to a frame-by-frame rotation analysis. In both the humans and the monkeys, torsion (fundus rotation about the visual axis) sinusoidally modulated (up to 8 degrees peak-to-peak) during foveal pursuit, approximately in phase with horizontal eye position. Intorsion (nasal movement of the upper eye pole) or extorsion was found during pursuit in the temporal or nasal direction. Torsion showed considerable intra-individual fluctuation and interindividual variability with regard to phase and modulation depth relative to the pursuit movements, and was interspersed with irregularly occurring rapid deflections. Torsion of the conjugate, nonpursing eye was similar to torsion of the pursuing eye. In contrast, torsion during fixation was only loosely correlated with horizontal eye position. Slow torsional drifts and large, rapid deflections (up to 6 degrees) occurred in either direction at a given fixation point in the horizontal plane. We conclude that ocular torsion during horizontal pursuit in primates is actively generated by a separate, neural oculomotor subsystem.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)