Fig. 6

Saccades link visual sensory processing and pupil-linked arousal-related changes in thalamo-cortical dynamics. a Distribution of inter saccade interval (top, ±SEM) shows that ferrets actively sample the visual environment rhythmically. The relationship between saccade magnitude and peak velocity (bottom) reflects the ballistic nature of saccades in ferrets. b Saccade rate during naturalistic video presentation illustrates that animals actively sample visual stimuli by showing an elevated rate of saccades (n = 26 sessions). c Saccade rate as a function of pupil diameter in the dark. The rate of saccades during large pupil diameter states is comparable to the rate of saccades when animals are actively sampling naturalistic videos. d Mean (±SEM) fluctuations in pupil diameter time locked to saccadic eye movements in the dark. Transient increases in pupil diameter precede saccades (P = 0.004, t-test). e Population average LFP power spectrograms in PPC (left) and LP/Pulvinar (right) time locked to saccades in the dark. LFP power was z-score normalized across the entire recording session. f Population average PPC to LP/Pulvinar PLV time locked to saccades in the dark. Dotted line indicates a break in the color scale, as shown to the right of the figure. g Across-session average time and frequency resolved Granger causality between PPC and LP/Pulvinar around the occurrence of saccades in the dark. Active sampling by saccades was associated with a decrease in PPC causal influence on LP/Pulvinar in the alpha band and an increase in LP/Pulvinar on PPC in the theta band