Pursuit subregion of the frontal eye field projects to the caudate nucleus in monkeys

It has been well established by recording, inactivation, and neuroanatomical studies that the caudate nucleus is important for the control of saccadic eye movements. However, until now, there has been little evidence that the caudate nucleus plays a role in smooth pursuit eye movements. In the present study, we physiologically identified the smooth pursuit subregion of the frontal eye field (FEFsem) and the saccadic subregion of the frontal eye field (FEFsac) in four Cebus monkeys. Anterogradely transported tracers (biotinylated dextran amines and wheat germ aglutinin conjugated to horseradish peroxidase) were then used to determine the efferent connections of the FEFsem to the caudate nucleus and to compare those connections with projections arising in the FEFsac. We observed dense projections from the FEFsem to the head and body of the caudate. The FEFsem and FEFsac terminal fields were of approximately equal density and total area. The region of FEFsem-labeled axon terminals overlapped only slightly with the region of FEFsac-labeled terminals. These results suggest that the caudate nucleus may play an important role in the control of smooth pursuit eye movements via feedback loops involving the basal ganglia and thalamus. Our results further suggest that the basal ganglia circuitry concerned with controlling visual pursuit is physically segregated from that concerned with controlling saccadic eye movements.