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Place Bât. Jacob, Campus Saint-Germain-des-Prés, U. Paris Cité
On Wednesday, September 24, 2025, we are pleased to welcome to the thesis room in the Jacob Building at Paris-Cité University:
- Daniel Guitton, Professor Emeritus of Neuroscience at McGill University and at the Montreal Neurological Institute
- Yoshiko Izawan Associate Professor at the Tokyo Institute of Science.
Title of presentations
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10h-10h45: D. Guitton: Anti-saccade in child psychiatry?
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11h15-12h00: Y. Izawa: Neural organization of control and execution of eye movements: basis for understanding gaze control in the elderly to predict frailty.
About the speakers
- Daniel Guitton holds doctoral degrees in Aeronautical Engineering and Neuroscience from McGill University, and has been recognized as Doctor Honoris Causa by the Université de Montréal. Professor Guitton is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
His research has been dedicated to elucidating the neural mechanisms that govern gaze orientation. In 1986, he published a seminal study demonstrating that frontal lobe lesions lead to an inability to inhibit ocular saccades toward visual targets—a finding that profoundly influenced both epistemological and clinical perspectives. Subsequent research, building on his work, has revealed that children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder exhibit deficits in the generation of anti-saccades, underscoring the diagnostic significance of Professor Guitton’s contribution. - Yoshiko Izawa obtained her Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 1994 and her PhD in 1998 from the Tokyo Medical and Dental University. A recognized specialist in neurophysiology, her work focuses primarily on elucidating the neural mechanisms that underlie gaze control.
Her recent research highlights the coordinated role of the frontal eye field (FEF), the superior colliculus, and premotor brainstem neurons in the generation and regulation of eye movements. Through these studies, Professor Izawa has helped to clarify the hierarchical organization of these structures. In her presentation, the first part will detail the neural organization of oculomotor pathways within the brainstem; the second will focus on the modulation exerted by the frontal eye field (FEF) on these movements, thereby illustrating the complexity of gaze control in the brain.