More (corrective) consecutive saccades after a lesion to the posterior parietal cortex

Abstract

To reach a target, primary saccades (S1s) are often followed by (corrective) consecutive saccades (S2, and potentially S3, S4, S5), which are based on retinal and extraretinal feedback. Processing these extraretinal signals was found to be significantly impaired by lesions to the posterior parietal cortex (PPC). Recent studies, however, added a more nuanced view to the role of the PPC, where patients with PPC lesions still used extraretinal signals for S2s and perceptual judgements (Fabius et al., 2020; Rath-Wilson & Guitton, 2015). Hence, it seems that a PPC lesion is not disrupting extraretinal processing per se. Yet, a lesion might still result in less reliable processing of extraretinal signals. Here, we investigated whether this lower reliability manifests as decreased or delayed S2 initiation. Patients with PPC lesions (n = 7) and controls (n = 26) performed a prosaccade task where the target either remained visible or was removed after S1 onset. When S1 is removed, accurate S2s (corrections of S1 error) rely solely on extraretinal signals. We analysed S2 quantity and timing using linear mixed-effects modelling and additive hazards analyses. Patients demonstrated slower S1 execution and lower S1 amplitudes than controls, but their S2s still compensated the S1 undershoot, also when they only relied on extraretinal information. Surprisingly, patients showed an increased amount of S2s. This deviation from control behaviour can be seen as suboptimal, but given the decreased accuracy of the primary saccade, it could be optimal for patients to employ more (corrective) consecutive saccades to overcome this inaccuracy.