Everyday movements often have multiple solutions. Many of these solutions arise from biomechanical redundancies. Often, however, the goal does not require a unique movement. To examine how people exploit task-related redundancy, we observed as participants produced three-dimensional (3-D) reaching movements, moving to one of two rectangular targets that were diagonally oriented in the frontal (...

Key words: accessory optic system-pretectum-retinal slip-optokinetic nystagmus In optokinetic nystagmus (OKN) retinal slip, that is, movement of the visual world on the retina, results in stabilizing eye movements which reduce the retinal slip velocity almost to zero. The visual input for this compensatory reflex seems to be transmitted along anatomically distinct pathways to the pretectal nucl...

Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) is a main mechanism of bacterial evolution endowing bacteria with new genetic traits. The transfer of mobile genetic elements such as plasmids (conjugation) requires the close proximity of cells. HGT between genetically distinct bacteria largely depends on cell movement in water films, which are typically discontinuous in natural systems like soil. Using laborator...

The neural relationships between eyelid movements and eye movements during spontaneous, voluntary, and reflex blinking in a group of healthy subjects were examined. Electromyographic (EMG) recording of the orbicularis oculi (OO) muscles was performed using surface electrodes. Concurrently, horizontal and vertical eye positions were recorded by means of the double magnetic induction (DMI) ring m...

Two very different language codes are exemplified by printed Chinese and English texts. Skilled native readers of each language have similar eye-movement patterns when care is taken to compare identical reading tasks and material and also to consider the Chinese multicharacter word. The similarity implies that both printed languages have been optimized to fit visual and oculomotor physiology an...

BACKGROUND/HYPOTHESIS With the video head impulse test (vHIT), the vertical VOR gain is defined as (vertical eye velocity/vertical head velocity), but compensatory eye movements to vertical canal stimulation usually have a torsional component. To minimize the contribution of torsion to the eye movement measurement, the horizontal gaze direction should be directed 40° from straight ahead so it i...