Anatomy and physiology of goldfish oculomotor system. II. Firing patterns of neurons in abducens nucleus and surrounding medulla and their relation to eye movements

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Abstract
Simultaneous recordings were made of eye movements and the activity of cells in and around the abducens nucleus of the goldfish, Carassius auratus. Of the 4 major cell types found, 2 were almost certainly motoneurons and lie in anatomically separate parts of the nucleus. The phasic-tonic cells, concentrated in the caudal cell group, fired phasically before posterior saccades and tonically at a rate that varied with eye position and velocity. The tonic cells, concentrated in the rostral group, fired only tonically at a much lower rate than the phasic-tonic cells. The phasic-tonic cells probably innervate the fast fibers of the posterior rectus, and the pure tonic cells probably innervate its slow fibers. Comparisons of various measures of a phasic-tonic cells''s excitability indicated that excitability is not a unitary property of the cell, determined by a single factor such as its size.

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