Dynamics of abducens nucleus neurons in the awake mouse

The mechanics of the eyeball and orbital tissues (the "ocular motor plant") are a fundamental determinant of ocular motor signal processing. The mouse is used increasingly in ocular motor physiology, but little is known about its plant mechanics. One way to characterize the mechanics is to determine relationships between extraocular motoneuron firing and eye movement. We recorded abducens nucleus neurons in mice executing compensatory eye movements during 0.1- to 1.6-Hz oscillation in the light. We analyzed firing rates to extract eye position and eye velocity sensitivities, from which we determined time constants of a viscoelastic model of the plant. The majority of abducens neurons were already active with the eye in its central rest position, with only 6% recruited at more abducted positions. Firing rates exhibited largely linear relationships to eye movement, although there was a nonlinearity consisting of increasing modulation in proportion to eye movement as eye amplitudes became small (due to reduced stimulus amplitude or reduced alertness). Eye position and velocity sensitivities changed with stimulus frequency as expected for an ocular motor plant dominated by cascaded viscoelasticities. Transfer function poles lay at approximately 0.1 and 0.9 s. Compared with previously studied animal species, the mouse plant is stiffer than the rabbit but laxer than cat and rhesus. Differences between mouse and rabbit can be explained by scaling for eye size (allometry). Differences between the mouse and cat or rhesus can be explained by differing ocular motor repertoires of animals with and without a fovea or area centralis.