The vestibulo-ocular reflex: computation in the cerebellar flocculus

The function of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, commonly known as the VOR, is to stabilise an image on the surface of the retina during head movement. One of the parts of the brain involved in this reflex is the flocculus in the cerebellum, which integrates information from multiple sources, including the vestibular apparatus in the labyrinth of the middle ear, motion detectors in visual cortex, and afferents from the muscles of the neck and eye. Research has shown (van der Steen et al[44] and others) that the flocculus is organised in a topographically ordered way, such that oculomotor responses elicited by stimulation of neighbouring areas of flocculus are close together in rotational-geometric space. This paper describes the vestibulo-ocular reflex in some detail, both from the mathematical and neurophysiological perspectives, and presents a computational model of how this topographic organisation can come to be learned from the information presented to the structure.