University of California San Francisco researchers have learned how neurons fire when orchestrating visual tracking.

They found that individual neurons do not fire independently across the entire duration of a motor function, as has been traditionally thought. Instead, the neurons coordinate their activity with other neurons.

Individual neurons encode different aspects of behavior, sometimes controlling eye-velocity fluctuations, but the entire population of neurons collectively controls the entire movement and its duration.

The results could help in developing neural prosthetics to treat paralysis and motor dysfunctions such as stroke. Understanding how multiple neurons work together could also influence the type of software created to drive these devices.

University of California San Francisco News Release