Quantifying post-saccadic macroscopic traveling brain waves in marmosets with graph-based algorithm

Abstract

Abstract Saccades are rapid eye movements that also strongly influence the visual processing. A variety of perisaccadic modulations of neuronal activity have been widely studied in many visual areas, yet the relationship between these modulations remains unclear. In this study, we recorded hemispheric electrocorticogram from marmosets performing visually-guided saccade task. We found that the 20 ~ 50 Hz phase-locked activities in the occipital cortex during 0 ~ 100 ms after saccade offset actually form a macroscopic traveling wave (TW) which originated from the primary visual area and propagated rostrally, occasionally to the parietal and temporal cortex. We designed an algorithm based on graph theory that can flexibly identify TWs and quantify wave parameters in data from large-scale recording systems. The results showed that latency, source, and other parameters of these TWs were modulated by saccade direction. We suggest this TW may function to sequentially reset the neuronal excitability along the cortical visual pathways after saccades.