Abstract
Mice have a large visual field that is constantly stabilized by vestibular ocular reflex (VOR) driven eye rotations that counter head-rotations. While maintaining their extensive visual coverage is advantageous for predator detection, mice also track and capture prey using vision. However, in the freely moving animal quantifying object location in the field of view is challenging. Here, we developed a method to digitally reconstruct and quantify the visual scene of freely moving mice performing a visually based prey capture task. By isolating the visual sense and combining a mouse eye optic model with the head and eye rotations, the detailed reconstruction of the digital environment and retinal features were projected onto the corneal surface for comparison, and updated throughout the behavior. By quantifying the spatial location of objects in the visual scene and their motion throughout the behavior, we show that the prey image consistently falls within a small area of the VOR-stabilized visual field. This functional focus coincides with the region of minimal optic flow within the visual field and consequently area of minimal motion-induced image-blur, as during pursuit mice ran directly toward the prey. The functional focus lies in the upper-temporal part of the retina and coincides with the reported high density-region of Alpha-ON sustained retinal ganglion cells.
Highlights
The visual system of mice serves a variety of seemingly opposing functions that range from detection of predators, to finding shelter and selection of food and mates, and is required to do so in a diverse set of environments (Boursot et al, 1993)
We show that during pursuit of crickets, the hunting behavior employed by mice results in the image of the prey consistently falling within a localized region of their visual field, termed here the functional focus
Neuroscience stabilized the visual field via the vestibulo-ocular reflex by countering head rotations, the rotations were not specific to either prey detection or prey tracking
Summary
The visual system of mice serves a variety of seemingly opposing functions that range from detection of predators, to finding shelter and selection of food and mates, and is required to do so in a diverse set of environments (Boursot et al, 1993). Like with many ground-dwelling rodents (Johnson and Gadow, 1901), predator detection in mice is served by a panoramic visual field which is achieved by the lateral placement of the eyes in the head (Drager, 1978; Hughes, 1979; Oommen and Stahl, 2008) combined with monocular visual fields of around 200 degrees (Drager and Olsen, 1980; Hughes, 1979; Sterratt et al, 2013).
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