The timing of LIP remapping is consistent with a wave of activity and brings into question the relevance of the pre-saccadic remapped response.

Maintaining stable perception amid dynamic visual input driven by eye movements is a remarkable feat of the brain. One proposed mechanism underlying this phenomenon is receptive field remapping in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP), in which neurons predictively update their receptive fields to compensate for eye movements. Models of remapping have suggested that the underlying mechanism may involve either a wave of activity or a single jump in activity. To test these competing hypotheses, we investigated the timing of remapping as a function of saccade length. We predicted that if remapping occurs through a jump, the remapped response will align more closely with saccade onset, independent of saccade length. Alternatively, if remapping involves a wave moving over time, we predicted that the remapped response would occur later for longer saccades when aligned by saccade onset. We recorded the activity of single LIP neurons and multiunit activity in animals performing a saccade task in which a probe appeared in the postsaccadic receptive field before a 7°, 14°, or 21° saccade. We found that responses to single neurons and to multiunits were all consistent with the wave hypothesis. Surprisingly, we also found that remapping responses starting before the saccade only occurred in conditions in which the probe was presented within the classical receptive field. These findings bring into question whether presaccadic remapped responses are a fundamental feature of LIP remapping and support the idea that the mechanism underlying remapping is driven by a wave of activity rather than a jump.NEW & NOTEWORTHY Predictive remapping is found in a significant subset of lateral intraparietal area (LIP) neurons, but the underlying mechanism is not known. By having animals make saccades of various lengths, we show that the underlying mechanism takes more time with longer saccades, suggesting that it is due to a wave of activity. Our results also bring into question whether presaccadic remapped responses are a fundamental feature of remapping.