Discrimination rerformance and resolution capacity of uncrossed visual pathways in one-eyed albino rats

Abstract

Our recent study has demonstrated that adult rats with one eye removed at birth (OEB) relearn a discrimination between alternating black and white stripes, 30 mm wide each, oriented horizontally and vertically faster than control rats monocularly enucleated in adulthood (OET), when relearning is carried out after lesions of the visual cortex and transections of the optic tract contralateral to the remaining eye. Yet, we could not obtain the corresponding results in the acquisition of the discrimination following the same surgical treatments: OEBs did master the discrimination, whereas OETs did not. We hypothesized that a large discrepancy in OETs' performance between the acquisition and relearning occurred because the stripes were close to the limit of the resolution capacity of the uncrossed visual pathways (UXVPs), and hence that a better performance of OEBs was to indicate an increase in the resolution capacity, which resulted from reorganization of the UXVPs brought about by monocular enucleation at birth. To test the hypothesis we tried to approximate the limit of the resolution capacity of the UXVPs in OEBs and OETs using seven different sized test stripes ranging from 20 to 5 mm in width after both OEBs and OETs had relearned the discrimination of the 30 mm training stripes following the same surgical treatments mentioned above. It was found that the median width of the smallest stripes for OETs to discriminate was 10 mm, and that of OEBs 7.5 mm. Although OETs could not discriminate the smallest stripes which OEBs could, they were able to discriminate stripes one third smaller than those hypothesized. Based on these findings the possibility was discussed that the acquisition as well as the relearning of the discrimination of the 30 mm stripes mediated by the UXVPs in OEBs and OETs might not be influenced by the resolution capacity, but mostly, if not entirely, by the size of the visual field.