Impairments in visual discrimination performance and gaze shifts in monkeys with superior colliculus lesions

Eye movements of monkeys were recorded while they performed a visual discrimination task before and after superior colliculus (SC) lesions or control surgery. The monkeys with SC lesions were impaired in orienting their eyes toward the visual stimuli when they were presented eccentrically 15 degrees to 32 degrees from the center of the display screen, toward which their heads were directed. This impairment in shifting the gaze to eccentric stimuli may account for the concomitant deficit in discriminating between these eccentric stimuli. The eye movement deficit appears to depend on destruction of the deep as well as more superficial layers of the SC and may reflect a disturbance in visual-oculomotor coordination.