Characteristics of Spontaneous Square-Wave Jerks in the Healthy Macaque Monkey during Visual Fixation Costela, Francisco M. Otero-Millan, Jorge McCamy, Michael B. Macknik, Stephen L. Di Stasi, Leandro Luigi Rieiro, Héctor Leigh, John R. Troncoso, Xoana G. Jazi, Ali Najafian Martínez-Conde, Susana Eye movements Monkeys Primates Macaque Eyes Vision Rhesus monkeys Saccadic intrusions (SIs), predominantly horizontal saccades that interrupt accurate fixation, include square-wave jerks (SWJs; the most common type of SI), which consist of an initial saccade away from the fixation target followed, after a short delay, by a return saccade that brings the eye back onto target. SWJs are present in most human subjects, but are prominent by their increased frequency and size in certain parkinsonian disorders and in recessive, hereditary spinocerebellar ataxias. SWJs have been also documented in monkeys with tectal and cerebellar etiologies, but no studies to date have investigated the occurrence of SWJs in healthy nonhuman primates. Here we set out to determine the characteristics of SWJs in healthy rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) during attempted fixation of a small visual target. Our results indicate that SWJs are common in healthy nonhuman primates. We moreover found primate SWJs to share many characteristics with human SWJs, including the relationship between the size of a saccade and its likelihood to be part of a SWJ. One main discrepancy between monkey and human SWJs was that monkey SWJs tended to be more vertical than horizontal, whereas human SWJs have a strong horizontal preference. Yet, our combined data indicate that primate and human SWJs play a similar role in fixation correction, suggesting that they share a comparable coupling mechanism at the oculomotor generation level. These findings constrain the potential brain areas and mechanisms underlying the generation of fixational saccades in human and nonhuman primates. 2015-07-14T08:59:36Z 2015-07-14T08:59:36Z 2015 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Costela, F.M.; et al. Characteristics of Spontaneous Square-Wave Jerks in the Healthy Macaque Monkey during Visual Fixation. Plos One, 10(6): e0126485 (2015). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/36953] 1932-6203 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/36953 10.1371/journal.pone.0126485 eng info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Public Library of Science (Plos)