Differential Frontal Cortex Activation Before Anticipatory and Reactive Saccades in Infants

Neural correlates of anticipatory and reactive saccades were studied in 4-month-old infants by recording high-density event-related potentials. Infants were presented with a fixed sequence of stimulus presentation to which they rapidly showed anticipatory saccades, as well as continuing with some reactive (stimulus-driven) saccades. As in a previous study, no clear evidence was found for adultlike, saccade-related potentials, although some presaccadic differences between reactive and anticipatory saccades were observed. Infants also showed different stimulus offset-related effects preceding the 2 types of trials with a right-frontal positivity when an anticipatory look follows, but only left-frontal positivity when a reactive saccade follows.