Rapid Saccades Code a Fast Allocator of the Generator Photic Stimulus

Abstract

Severe interference with generation of rapid saccades seems to result in delay of recognition of lack of novelty value of a recent stimulus. This delay was experimentally detected by the nature of bioelectric processes recorded from the CA3, CA1(1) and CA1(2) hippocampal pyramidal neurons during the early phases of conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane reflex to an unusual visual stimulus. The results suggest that the rapid saccades contain and transmit a fast partial code of the visual stimulus that generated them. This partial code functions as a fast allocator of memory traces (of the generator photic stimulus) that are deposited in the diffuse memory system.