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Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice.

ABSTRACT: Many studies of visual processing are conducted in constrained conditions such as head- and gaze-fixation, and therefore less is known about how animals actively acquire visual information in natural contexts. To determine how mice target their gaze during natural behavior, we measured head and bilateral eye movements in mice performing prey capture, an ethological behavior that engages vision. We found that the majority of eye movements are compensatory for head movements, thereby serving to stabilize the visual scene. During movement, however, periods of stabilization are interspersed with non-compensatory saccades that abruptly shift gaze position. Notably, these saccades do not preferentially target the prey location. Rather, orienting movements are driven by the head, with the eyes following in coordination to sequentially stabilize and recenter the gaze. These findings relate eye movements in the mouse to other species, and provide a foundation for studying active vision during ethological behaviors in the mouse.

SUBMITTER: Michaiel AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7438109 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice.

Michaiel Angie M AM Abe Elliott Tt ET Niell Cristopher M CM

eLife 20200724

Many studies of visual processing are conducted in constrained conditions such as head- and gaze-fixation, and therefore less is known about how animals actively acquire visual information in natural contexts. To determine how mice target their gaze during natural behavior, we measured head and bilateral eye movements in mice performing prey capture, an ethological behavior that engages vision. We found that the majority of eye movements are compensatory for head movements, thereby serving to st ...[more]

PMID: 32706335

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Project description:Mice are opportunistic omnivores that readily learn to hunt and eat insects such as crickets. The details of how mice learn these behaviors and how these behaviors may differ in strains with altered neuroplasticity are unclear. We quantified the behavior of juvenile wild type and Shank3 knockout mice as they learned to hunt crickets during the critical period for ocular dominance plasticity. This stage involves heightened cortical plasticity including homeostatic synaptic scaling, which requires Shank3, a glutamatergic synaptic protein that, when mutated, produces Phelan-McDermid syndrome and is often comorbid with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Both strains showed interest in examining live and dead crickets and learned to hunt. Shank 3 knockout mice took longer to become proficient, and, after 5 days, did not achieve the efficiency of wild type mice in either time-to-capture or distance-to-capture. Shank3 knockout mice also exhibited different characteristics when pursuing crickets that could not be explained by a simple motor deficit. Although both genotypes moved at the same average speed when approaching a cricket, Shank3 KO mice paused more often, did not begin final accelerations toward crickets as early, and did not close the distance gap to the cricket as quickly as wild type mice. These differences in Shank3 KO mice are reminiscent of some behavioral characteristics of individuals with ASD as they perform complex tasks, such as slower action initiation and completion. This paradigm will be useful for exploring the neural circuit mechanisms that underlie these learning and performance differences in monogenic ASD rodent models.Significance StatementDuring early development, activity-dependent plasticity mechanisms shape brain circuits. Shank3 is a synaptic protein that is mutated in Phelan-McDermid syndrome and is usually comorbid with autism spectrum disorder. Prior research shows that mice deficient in Shank3 exhibit abnormalities in a plasticity mechanism called homeostatic synaptic scaling. Here, we explore whether Shank3 knockout mice can learn to hunt crickets. We find that they can, although they pause more during their hunting and do not accelerate towards the cricket as rapidly. Future studies may be able to trace the neural circuits responsible for these differences, shedding more light on the causes of Phelan-McDermid syndrome and autism.

Dataset Information

Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice.

Publications

Dynamics of gaze control during prey capture in freely moving mice.

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