Nonvisual eye position control in a patient with ocular lateropulsion.

For elucidating the nonvisual eye position control system, we studied the accuracy of saccades toward the remembered position (memory-guided saccades) in a patient with ocular lateropulsion having tonic bias of the eye position. Although the saccadic dysmetria caused by ocular lateropulsion was recorded during memory-guided saccades in the same manner as visually guided saccades, the eyes reached precisely the intended position by corrective saccades. The mean latency of corrective saccades was significantly longer than that of corrective saccades observed for visually guided saccades. This long latency of corrective saccades supports the assumption that feedback information of the eye position is a signal generated by orbital afferents rather than a copy of the motor command.