Monocular Visual Deprivation and Ocular Dominance Plasticity Measurement in the Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

Ke Chen; Yilei Zhao; Ting Liu; Zhaohao Su; Huiliang Yu; Leanne  Lai Hang Chan; Tiejun Liu; Dezhong Yao

doi:10.3791/60600

A subscription to JoVE is required to view this content. Sign in or start your free trial.

Method Article

Monocular Visual Deprivation and Ocular Dominance Plasticity Measurement in the Mouse Primary Visual Cortex

10.8K views

⸱

DOI:

10.3791/60600

⸱

February 8th, 2020

Ke Chen^*¹^,² , Yilei Zhao^*¹ , Ting Liu¹ , Zhaohao Su¹ , Huiliang Yu¹ , Leanne Lai Hang Chan³^,⁴ , Tiejun Liu¹^,² , Dezhong Yao¹^,²

¹The Clinical Hospital of Chengdu Brain Science Institute, MOE Key Lab for NeuroInformation, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, ²Sichuan Institute for Brain Science and Brain-inspired Intelligence, ³Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, ⁴Centre for Biosystems, Neuroscience, and Nanotechnology, City University of Hong Kong

^* These authors contributed equally

Summary

Here, we present detailed protocols for monocular visual deprivation and ocular dominance plasticity analysis, which are important methods for studying the neural mechanisms of visual plasticity during the critical period and the effects of specific genes on visual development.

Abstract

Monocular visual deprivation is an excellent experimental paradigm to induce primary visual cortical response plasticity. In general, the response of the cortex to the contralateral eye to a stimulus is much stronger than the response of the ipsilateral eye in the binocular segment of the mouse primary visual cortex (V1). During the mammalian critical period, suturing the contralateral eye will result in a rapid loss of responsiveness of V1 cells to contralateral eye stimulation. With the continuing development of transgenic technologies, more and more studies are using transgenic mice as experimental models to examine the effects of specific genes on ocular dominance (OD) plasticity. In this study, we introduce detailed protocols for monocular visual deprivation and calculate the change in OD plasticity in mouse V1. After monocular deprivation (MD) for 4 days during the critical period, the orientation tuning curves of each neuron are measured, and the tuning curves of layer four neurons in V1 are compared between stimulation of the ipsilateral and contralateral eyes. The contralateral bias index (CBI) can be calculated using each cell's ocular OD score to indicate the degree of OD plasticity. This experimental technique is important for studying the neural mechanisms of OD plasticity during the critical period and for surveying the roles of specific genes in neural development. The major limitation is that the acute study cannot investigate the change in neural plasticity of the same mouse at a different time.

Introduction

Monocular visual deprivation is an excellent experimental paradigm to examine V1 plasticity. To study the importance of visual experience in neural development, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel¹^,² deprived kittens of normal vision in one eye at various time points and for varying periods of time. They then observed the changes in response intensity in V1 for the deprived and nondeprived eyes. Their results showed an abnormally low number of neurons reacting to the eye that had been sutured shut in the first three months. However, the responses from the neurons in the kittens remained identical in all respects to....