An ethologically relevant paradigm to assess defensive response to looming visual contrast stimuli.
Sci Rep
; 14(1): 12499, 2024 05 31.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38822033
ABSTRACT
In the animal kingdom, threat information is perceived mainly through vision. The subcortical visual pathway plays a critical role in the rapid processing of visual information-induced fear, and triggers a response. Looming-evoked behavior in rodents, mimicking response to aerial predators, allowed identify the neural circuitry underlying instinctive defensive behaviors; however, the influence of disk/background contrast on the looming-induced behavioral response has not been examined, either in rats or mice. We studied the influence of the dark disk/gray background contrast in the type of rat and mouse defensive behavior in the looming arena, and we showed that rat and mouse response as a function of disk/background contrast adjusted to a sigmoid-like relationship. Both sex and age biased the contrast-dependent response, which was dampened in rats submitted to retinal unilateral or bilateral ischemia. Moreover, using genetically manipulated mice, we showed that the three type of photoresponsive retinal cells (i.e., cones, rods, and intrinsically photoresponsive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs)), participate in the contrast-dependent response, following this hierarchy cones > > rods > > > ipRGCs. The cone and rod involvement was confirmed using a mouse model of unilateral non-exudative age-related macular degeneration, which only damages canonical photoreceptors and significantly decreased the contrast sensitivity in the looming arena.
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Texto completo:
1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Estimulação Luminosa
/
Células Ganglionares da Retina
Limite:
Animals
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Sci Rep
Ano de publicação:
2024
Tipo de documento:
Article