Presaccadic omnidirectional burst activity in the basal interstitial nucleus in the monkey cerebellum

We recorded saccade-related neurons in the vicinity of the dentate nucleus of the cerebellum in two monkeys trained to perform visually guided saccades and memory-guided saccades. Among 76 saccade-related neurons, 38 showed presaccadic bursts in all directions. More than 80% of such burst neurons were located in the area ventral to, not inside, the dentate nucleus, which corresponded to the basal interstitial nucleus (BIN as previously described). We found that the activity of the BIN neurons was correlated with saccade duration but not with saccade amplitude or velocity. Thus, when tested with visually guided saccades, the burst started about 16 ms before saccade onset and ended about 33 ms before saccade offset, regardless of saccade amplitude. The characteristic timing of the BIN cell activity was maintained for different types of saccades (visually guided, memory-guided and spontaneous saccades), which had different dynamics. Although the number of spikes in a burst for each neuron was linearly correlated with saccade amplitude for a given type of saccade, the slope varied depending on the type of saccade. Peak burst frequency was uncorrelated with saccadic peak velocity. In contrast, burst duration was highly correlated with saccade duration regardless of the type of saccade. These results suggest that BIN neurons may carry information to determine the timing of saccades. Received: 14 August 1997 / Accepted: 17 February 1998