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

 描述（由申请人提供）：将开发一种用于测量眼球运动的高分辨率、低成本和易于实施的技术。这将加快视觉研究的步伐，使眼动测量广泛整合到日益复杂的视觉引导行为研究中，包括自由运动的研究。 小鼠从历史上看，对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研究中使用老鼠，他们越来越多地从视觉系统转向其他感觉系统。这限制了我们对视觉系统的理解，使其无法从小鼠中获得强大的分子遗传工具，从而无法分析健康和疾病中的神经回路。老鼠有时被误认为是“不太直观”。虽然比某些物种对视觉的依赖性更小，但老鼠显然使用视觉来实现各种功能，包括导航和躲避捕食者。因此，有很大的潜力的分子遗传学方法，可在小鼠中独特的，以促进我们的理解的基本视觉处理操作支持这种视觉引导的行为。然而，一个技术障碍限制了对小鼠视觉的研究，即测量和控制ee运动的困难，从而知道在视网膜水平上视觉系统的输入是什么。这一技术障碍将通过开发一种基于磁传感的测量小鼠眼球运动的新技术来消除。一个小而强大的钕磁铁将被用来创造一个旋转的外部磁场，因为眼睛在其插槽旋转。然后，磁场的角度将由外部磁场传感器检测。为了优化用于测量小鼠眼球运动的系统的性能，将严格测试各种磁体形状、磁传感器以及磁体和传感器的几何配置。性能将与现有的方法进行比较，用于测量眼球运动，即视频眼电描记术和巩膜搜索线圈技术。然后在自由移动的小鼠中评估磁系统，并将用于检查自然行为期间眼睛和头部运动的协调。重要的是，在小鼠中开发的技术将很容易适用于广泛的物种。

 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.