scholarly journals Visual stimulus-specific habituation of innate defensive behaviour in mice

2021 ◽  
Vol 224 (6) ◽  
pp. jeb230433
Author(s):  
Azadeh Tafreshiha ◽  
Sven A. van der Burg ◽  
Kato Smits ◽  
Laila A. Blömer ◽  
J. Alexander Heimel
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Young Male ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Defensive Behaviour ◽  
Male Mice ◽  
Repeated Stimulus ◽  
Defensive Responses ◽  
Animal Survival ◽  
Field Location

ABSTRACTInnate defensive responses such as freezing or escape are essential for animal survival. Mice show defensive behaviour to stimuli sweeping overhead, like a bird cruising the sky. Here, we tested this in young male mice and found that mice reduced their defensive freezing after sessions with a stimulus passing overhead repeatedly. This habituation is stimulus specific, as mice freeze again to a novel shape. Habituation occurs regardless of the visual field location of the repeated stimulus. The mice generalized over a range of sizes and shapes, but distinguished objects when they differed in both size and shape. Innate visual defensive responses are thus strongly influenced by previous experience as mice learn to ignore specific stimuli.

scholarly journals Visual stimulus-specific habituation of innate defensive behaviour in mice

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Azadeh Tafreshiha ◽  
Sven A. van den Burg ◽  
Kato Smits ◽  
Laila A. Blömer ◽  
J. Alexander Heimel
Keyword(s):  
Visual System ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Defensive Behaviour ◽  
Size And Shape ◽  
Defensive Responses ◽  
Animal Survival

AbstractInnate defensive responses such as freezing or escape are essential for animal survival. Mice show defensive behaviour to stimuli sweeping overhead, like a bird cruising the sky. Here, we found that mice reduced their defensive freezing after sessions with a stimulus passing overhead repeatedly. This habituation is stimulus-specific, as mice freeze again to a novel shape. This allows us to investigate the invariances in the mouse visual system. The mice generalize over retinotopic location and over size and shape, but distinguish objects when they differ in both size and shape. Innate visual defensive responses are thus strongly influenced by previous experience as mice learn to ignore specific stimuli. This form of learning occurs at the level of a location-independent representation.

scholarly journals Subjective Stimulus Duration Depends on Visual Field Location

2015 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng Xiaoqin ◽  
Kliegl Katrin ◽  
Huckauf Anke ◽  
Penney Trevor
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Stimulus Duration ◽  
Field Location

scholarly journals Behavioral effects of visual field location on processing motion- and luminance-defined form

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 24-24
Author(s):  
P. A. McMullen ◽  
L. E. MacSween ◽  
C. A. Collin
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Behavioral Effects ◽  
Field Location

scholarly journals Rivalry Onset in and around the Fovea: The Role of Visual Field Location and Eye Dominance on Perceptual Dominance Bias

Vision ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Jody Stanley ◽  
Jason D. Forte ◽  
Olivia Carter
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Visual Space ◽  
Peripheral Visual Field ◽  
Eye Dominance ◽  
Initial Onset ◽  
Onset Period ◽  
Trained Observers ◽  
Field Location

When dissimilar images are presented to each eye, the images will alternate every few seconds in a phenomenon known as binocular rivalry. Recent research has found evidence of a bias towards one image at the initial ‘onset’ period of rivalry that varies across the peripheral visual field. To determine the role that visual field location plays in and around the fovea at onset, trained observers were presented small orthogonal achromatic grating patches at various locations across the central 3° of visual space for 1-s and 60-s intervals. Results reveal stronger bias at onset than during continuous rivalry, and evidence of temporal hemifield dominance across observers, however, the nature of the hemifield effects differed between individuals and interacted with overall eye dominance. Despite using small grating patches, a high proportion of mixed percept was still reported, with more mixed percept at onset along the vertical midline, in general, and in increasing proportions with eccentricity in the lateral hemifields. Results show that even within the foveal range, onset rivalry bias varies across visual space, and differs in degree and sensitivity to biases in average dominance over continuous viewing.

Ontogeny of the responses of European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) to aerial and ground predators

2000 ◽  
Vol 78 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Pongrácz ◽  
Vilmos Altbäcker
Keyword(s):  
Oryctolagus Cuniculus ◽  
Control Object ◽  
Previous Experience ◽  
Avoidance Behaviour ◽  
Antipredator Behaviour ◽  
Defensive Behaviour ◽  
Terrestrial Predator ◽  
European Rabbits ◽  
Predator Model ◽  
Quantitative Response

The responses of adult (6-9 months old) and young (5-8 weeks old) rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) to their natural predators were tested. The aims of our experiments were to investigate whether (i) inexperienced rabbits would avoid a stuffed goshawk but not a non-bird-like control object and (ii) adult rabbits would behave differently toward an aerial and a terrestrial predator model on their first encounter, and (iii) to compare the inherited antipredator behaviour of adult and young rabbits toward the two types of predators. We tested only naïve rabbits and used a stuffed goshawk and fox as predators. Our results showed that under controlled laboratory conditions (i) a stuffed predator could elicit avoidance behaviour in rabbits without previous experience with predators; (ii) adult rabbits behaved differently toward the stuffed fox and goshawk; (iii) the behaviour of young rabbits was less differentiated, and their "quantitative" response developed into the adults' well-structured defensive behaviour without any experience with predators.

scholarly journals Age and sex dimorphisms contribute to the severity of bleomycin-induced lung injury and fibrosis

2011 ◽  
Vol 301 (4) ◽  
pp. L510-L518 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth F. Redente ◽  
Kristen M. Jacobsen ◽  
Joshua J. Solomon ◽  
Abigail R. Lara ◽  
Sarah Faubel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pulmonary Fibrosis ◽  
Bronchoalveolar Lavage ◽  
Lung Disease ◽  
Bronchoalveolar Lavage Fluid ◽  
Transforming Growth Factor ◽  
Young Male ◽  
Lavage Fluid ◽  
Male Mice ◽  
Female Mice ◽  
Age And Sex

Fibrotic interstitial pneumonias are more prevalent in males of advancing age, although little is known about the underlying mechanisms. To evaluate the contributions of age and sex to the development of pulmonary fibrosis, we intratracheally instilled young (8–12 wk) and aged (52–54 wk) male and female mice with bleomycin and assessed the development and severity of fibrotic lung disease by measurements of lung collagen levels, static compliance, leukocyte infiltration, and stereological quantification of fibrotic areas in histological sections. We also quantified proinflammatory and profibrotic chemokine and cytokine levels in the bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Aged male mice developed more severe lung disease, indicated by increased mortality, increased collagen deposition, and neutrophilic alveolitis compared with aged female mice or young mice of either sex. Aged male mice also exhibited increased levels of transforming growth factor-β, IL-17A, and CXCL1 in their bronchoalveolar lavage fluid. Young male mice developed a more fibrotic disease after bleomycin instillation compared with female mice, regardless of age. There was no difference in fibrosis between young and aged female mice. Taken together, these findings suggest that the variables of advanced age and male sex contribute to the severity of pulmonary fibrosis in this model. Our findings also emphasize the importance of stratifying experimental groups on the basis of age and sex in experimental and epidemiological studies of this nature.

scholarly journals Dissociating Vision and Visual Attention in the Human Pulvinar

2009 ◽  
Vol 101 (2) ◽  
pp. 917-925 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. T. Smith ◽  
P. L. Cotton ◽  
A. Bruno ◽  
C. Moutsiana
Keyword(s):  
Visual Field ◽  
Visual Attention ◽  
Visual Stimulus ◽  
Optic Flow ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Retinotopic Organization ◽  
Cortical Regions ◽  
Mri Study ◽  
Related Design ◽  
Central Fixation

The pulvinar region of the thalamus has repeatedly been linked with the control of attention. However, the functions of the pulvinar remain poorly characterized, both in human and in nonhuman primates. In a functional MRI study, we examined the relative contributions to activity in the human posterior pulvinar made by visual drive (the presence of an unattended visual stimulus) and attention (covert spatial attention to the stimulus). In an event-related design, large optic flow stimuli were presented to the left and/or right of a central fixation point. When unattended, the stimuli robustly activated two regions of the pulvinar, one medial and one dorsal with respect to the lateral geniculate. The activity in both regions shows a strong contralateral bias, suggesting retinotopic organization. Primate physiology suggests that the two regions could be two portions of the same double map of the visual field. In our paradigm, attending to the stimulus enhanced the response by about 20%. Thus attention is not necessary to activate the human pulvinar and the degree of attentional enhancement matches, but does not exceed, that seen in the cortical regions with which the posterior pulvinar connects.

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