Spontaneous eyeblink rate predicts the strength of visuomotor binding

The primate cortex represents the external world in a distributed way, which requires for a mechanism that integrates the features of a processed event. Animal and patients studies suggest that feature binding in the visual cortex is under muscarinic-cholinergic control, whereas visuomotor integration is driven by the dopaminergic system. Consistent with this picture, we present evidence that the binding of visual and action features is modulated by spontaneous eyeblink rate (EBR), which is a functional marker of central dopaminergic function. Remarkably, the impact of EBR was restricted to the task-relevant visuomotor binding, suggesting that dopamine increased the maintenance of task-relevant information. (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.