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

 描述(申请人提供)：将开发一种高分辨率、低成本、易于实施的眼部运动测量技术。这将加快视觉研究的步伐，因为它允许广泛地将眼动测量整合到对视觉引导行为的日益复杂的研究中，包括自由移动的研究 老鼠。历史上，对感觉加工的研究在很大程度上集中在视觉系统上。然而，随着神经学家越来越多地在他们的研究中使用老鼠，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在多大程度上可以从老鼠身上可用来分析健康和疾病神经回路的强大分子遗传学工具中获益。老鼠有时会被误解为“视觉不是很好”。尽管与某些物种相比，老鼠对视觉的依赖程度较低，但它们显然利用视觉来实现各种功能，包括导航和躲避捕食者。因此，在小鼠身上独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。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运动的难度，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新的技术来消除，该技术基于磁感应来测量老鼠的眼球运动。当眼睛在眼窝中旋转时，一个小但强大的钕磁铁将被用来产生一个旋转的外部磁场。然后，磁场的角度将由外部磁场传感器检测。为了优化小鼠眼球运动测量系统的性能，将对各种磁铁形状、磁性传感器以及磁铁和传感器的几何配置进行严格测试。性能将与现有的测量眼球运动的方法进行比较，即视频眼底照相术和巩膜搜索线圈技术。然后，将在可以自由移动的小鼠身上评估该磁系统，并将用于检查自然行为期间眼睛和头部运动的协调性。重要的是，在老鼠身上开发的技术将很容易适应广泛的物种。

 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.