A NEURON-BASED TIME-OPTIMAL CONTROLLER OF HORIZONTAL SACCADIC EYE MOVEMENTS

A neural network model of biophysical neurons in the midbrain for controlling oculomotor muscles during horizontal human saccades is presented. Neural circuitry that includes omnipause neuron, premotor excitatory and inhibitory burst neurons, long lead burst neuron, tonic neuron, interneuron, abducens nucleus and oculomotor nucleus is developed to investigate saccade dynamics. The final motoneuronal signals drive a time-optimal controller that stimulates a linear homeomorphic model of the oculomotor plant. To our knowledge, this is the first report on modeling the neural circuits at both premotor and motor stages of neural activity in saccadic systems.