Development of adult‐like open‐field behaviors in young retinal‐degenerate C3H mice

Abstract

Retinal degenerate C3H mice were tested in the open field under 2 illumination conditions before, during, and after the ages at which the early degenerate process occurs to determine whether the progressive destruction of the retina would result in the loss of brightness discrimination ability. From data collected on mice tested at 10, 14, 18, 22, 26, and 30 days of age, longitudinal and cross-sectional analyses were performed upon activity and and defecation scores to separate the effects of prior test experience and age at testing. Whereas illumination differences had no effect upon defecation scores, activity differences under the 2 illumination levels formed an inverted U-shaped function, with the greatest activity difference at 22 days of age. Prior experience was found to have no effect upon total activity scores at a particular age, although it did affect the pattern of activity over test days at the later ages. Naive animals tended to defecate less on their first day than did animals of the same age with prior test experience. The results of this experiment provide further evidence that retinal degeneration does not lead to complete blindness in this mouse strain, although it does lead to a loss of brightness discrimination ability following the degeneration period.Mice afflicted with retinal degeneration (rd), an inherited abnormality, undergo spontaneous degeneration of the retina during the second postnatal week and appear to lose their visual capacities thereafter. Anatomical evidence reported by Tansley

Anxiety-related behaviors in the elevated zero-maze are affected by genetic factors and retinal degeneration.

“…Because C3H mice (20–100 days of age) have been shown to respond to brightness differences in the open field (Nagy & Misanin, 1970), their behavior may be indicative of some residual visual capacities beyond the early degeneration period. Moreover, C3H mice that were tested at various ages before, during, and after the onset of retinal degeneration were shown to be more active under low versus high illumination (Nagy & McKay, 1972). In this study, the authors concluded that although retinal degeneration in the second postnatal week renders the mice insensitive to certain types of visual cues, it does not produce total blindness.…”

Maternal and Genetic Effects on Anxiety-Related Behavior of C3H/HeN, DBA/2J and NMRI Mice in a Motility-Box Following Blastocyst Transfer

“…They may be measured manually, by video recording or by automated sampling making use of photo beams. The size of open field arenas used to study behavior of mice may reach 90 cm  90 cm, although most arenas range from 30 cm  30 cm to 60 cm  60 cm (Gill and Boyle, 2005;Henderson et al, 2004;Kafkafi et al, 2005;Leppanen and Ewalds-Kvist, 2005;Nagy and McKay, 1972;Singer et al, 2005;Trullas and Skolnick, 1993). In a smaller open field arena the measurement of locomotor activity is more reliable, because emotional factors influencing locomotor activity are supposed to be reduced.…”

“…The behavior in the open field is influenced by visual (Nagy and McKay, 1972) and tactile cues (Meyer and Meyer, 1992;Luhmann et al, 2005;Treit and Fundytus, 1988). The C3H/HeN mice used in the Fig.…”