A technique for measuring eye movements in small and/or freely moving animals

一种测量小型和/或自由移动动物眼球运动的技术

• 批准号: 9360618
• 负责人: Jennifer L Raymond
• 金额: $ 16.26万
• 依托单位: STANFORD UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-09-30 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9360618
• 关键词: Adoption; Animals; Attention; Behavior; Behavior Control; Behavioral; Behavioral Paradigm; Benchmarking; Bilateral; Clinical; Decision Making; Disease; Exhibits; Eye; Eye Movements; Geometry; Head Movements; Health; Implant; Learning; Location; Magnetism; Measurement; Measures; Mechanics; Memory; Methodology; Methods; Molecular Genetics; Movement; Mus; Neodymium; Neurophysiology - biologic function; Noise; Operative Surgical Procedures; Output; Partner in relationship; Performance; Predatory Behavior; Research; Research Personnel; Resolution; Retina; Rodent; Rotation; Sensory; Shapes; Signal Transduction; Stimulus; Structure; System; Techniques; Testing; Time; Vision; Visual; Visual system structure; Work; base; biological research; cognitive function; cost; genetic approach; improved; in vivo; interest; light weight; magnetic field; neural circuit; novel; operation; public health relevance; response; sensor; sensory system; tool; visual control; visual processing; visual-vestibular

 DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): A high-resolution, low-cost, and easy-to-implement technique for measuring eye movements will be developed. This will accelerate the pace of research on vision by allowing widespread integration of eye movement measurements into increasingly sophisticated studies of visually- guided behavior, including studies in freely moving mice. Historically, research on sensory processing has focused to a great extent on the visual system. However, as neuroscientists turn increasingly to using mice in their research, they are turning increasingly away from the visual system in favor of other sensory systems. This is limiting the extent to which our understanding of the visual system can reap the benefits of the powerful molecular-genetic tools available in mice for analyzing neural circuits in health and disease. Mice are sometimes misperceived as being "not very visual". Although less dependent on vision than some species, mice clearly use vision for a variety of functions, including navigation and evasion of predators. Thus, there is great potential for the molecular-genetic approaches available uniquely in mice to advance our understanding of the fundamental visual processing operations supporting such visually-guided behavior. Nevertheless a technical barrier is limiting studies of vision in mice, namely the difficulty of measuring and controlling ee movements and hence knowing what the input was to the visual system at the level of the retina. This technical barrier will be eliminated by developing a novel technique for measuring eye movements in mice, based on magnetic sensing. A small but powerful neodymium magnet will be used to create a rotating external magnetic field as the eye rotates in its socket. The angle of the magnetic field will then be detected by an external magnetic field sensor. To optimize performance of the system for measuring eye movements in mice, various magnet shapes, magnetic sensors, and geometric configurations of magnet and sensor will be rigorously tested. Performance will be compared against existing methods for measuring eye movements, namely video-oculography and the scleral search coil techniques. The magnetic system will then be assessed in mice that are free to move, and will be used to examine the coordination of eye and head movements during natural behaviors. Importantly, the techniques developed in mice will be readily adaptable to a broad range of species.

 描述（由申请人提供）：将开发一种高分辨率、低成本且易于实施的眼球运动测量技术，这将通过允许眼球运动测量的广泛集成来加快视觉研究的步伐。对视觉引导移动行为的复杂研究，包括自由研究 从历史上看，感觉处理的研究在很大程度上集中在视觉系统上，然而，随着神经科学家越来越多地在他们的研究中使用小鼠，他们越来越远离视觉系统，转而支持其他感觉系统。限制了我们对视觉系统的理解，可以在小鼠身上利用强大的分子遗传学工具来分析健康和疾病的神经回路，尽管小鼠对视觉的依赖程度较低，但有时会被误解为“不太依赖视觉”。老鼠的视力比某些物种清晰因此，小鼠特有的分子遗传学方法有很大的潜力来促进我们对支持这种视觉引导行为的基本视觉处理操作的理解。这一障碍限制了对小鼠视觉的研究，即测量和控制眼电运动以及了解视网膜水平视觉系统的输入的困难，通过开发一种测量眼睛的新技术可以消除这一技术障碍。基于磁感应的小鼠运动但是，当眼睛在眼窝中旋转时，将使用强大的钕磁铁来产生旋转的外部磁场，然后外部磁场传感器将检测磁场的角度，以优化用于测量眼睛运动的系统的性能。小鼠、各种磁体形状、磁传感器以及磁体和传感器的几何配置将与现有的测量眼球运动的方法（即视频眼图和巩膜搜索线圈技术）进行严格测试。在可以自由活动的小鼠中进行评估移动，并将用于检查自然行为过程中眼睛和头部运动的协调性，重要的是，在小鼠身上开发的技术将很容易适用于广泛的物种。