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A new motor synergy that serves the needs of oculomotor and eye lid systems while keeping the downtime of vision minimal

  1. Mohammad Farhan Khazali  Is a corresponding author
  2. Joern K Pomper
  3. Aleksandra Smilgin
  4. Friedemann Bunjes
  5. Peter Thier  Is a corresponding author
  1. University of Tübingen, Germany
Research Article
  • Cited 5
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Cite this article as: eLife 2016;5:e16290 doi: 10.7554/eLife.16290

Abstract

The purpose of blinks is to keep the eyes hydrated and to protect them. Blinks are rarely noticed by the subject as blink-induced alterations of visual input are blanked out without jeopardizing the perception of visual continuity, features blinks share with saccades. Although not perceived, the blink-induced disconnection from the visual environment leads to a loss of information. Therefore there is critical need to minimize it. Here we demonstrate evidence for a new type of eye movement serving a distinct oculomotor demand, namely the resetting of eye torsion, likewise inevitably causing a loss of visual information. By integrating this eye movement into blinks, the inevitable down times of vision associated with each of the two behaviors are synchronized and the overall downtime minimized.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Mohammad Farhan Khazali

    Department of Cognitive Neurology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
    For correspondence
    mohammad.khazali@student.uni-tuebingen.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  2. Joern K Pomper

    Department of Cognitive Neurology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  3. Aleksandra Smilgin

    Department of Cognitive Neurology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  4. Friedemann Bunjes

    Department of Cognitive Neurology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

  5. Peter Thier

    Department of Cognitive Neurology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
    For correspondence
    thier@uni-tuebingen.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Funding

No external funding was received for this work.

Ethics

Human subjects: All subjects gave written informed consent and consent to publication according to the declaration of Helsinki prior to the experiment. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Tuebingen.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Jennifer L Raymond, Stanford University, United States

Publication history

  1. Received: March 22, 2016
  2. Accepted: August 5, 2016
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: August 23, 2016 (version 1)
  4. Accepted Manuscript updated: August 25, 2016 (version 2)
  5. Version of Record published: September 6, 2016 (version 3)

Copyright

© 2016, Khazali et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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