Fig. 7: Restoration of conditioned visually guided behavior. | Communications Biology

Fig. 7: Restoration of conditioned visually guided behavior.

From: Bipolar cell targeted optogenetic gene therapy restores parallel retinal signaling and high-level vision in the degenerated retina

Fig. 7

a Graphical depiction of the two-compartment visual conditioning paradigm to a moving grating (0.35 cyc/deg spatial frequency). b Comparison of aversive behaviors on day 4 before and during the pattern display increased significantly in C57BL/6 controls (n = 6 animals; p = 0.00263) and Mela(CTmGluR6)-treated rd1 mice (n = 9 animals; p = 0.00026), while non-treated rd1 mice did not show a behavioral response to the pattern stimulus (n = 5 animals; p = 0.83). See Supplementary Movie M1 in the supplementary information for a typical behavior of a treated rd1 mouse in response to the drifting gratings. Comparison of 60 s pre-stimulus vs. 60 s during stimulus. c Stimulus-triggered aversive behavior was equally observed in Mela(CTmGluR6) injected rd1 mice (n = 9) and healthy C57BL/6 mice (positive control, n = 6; p = 0.9935), but not in untreated rd1 littermates (negative control, n = 5; p = 0.00005). d Average VEP responses to a full-field light stimulus (470 nm, 5 × 1013 photons/cm2/s, 500 ms) in dark-adapted C57BL/6 animals (n = 9 traces), light-adapted C57BL/6 animals (n = 6 traces), Mela(CTmGluR6)-treated rd1 animals (n = 22 traces) and untreated rd1 controls (n = 9 traces). e Comparison of P1-N1 amplitudes in light adapted C57BL/6 animals (367 ± 90 µV; n = 6 traces) and Mela(CTmGluR6)-treated rd1 animals (506 ± 162 µV; n = 20 traces). No significant differences were observed between experimental groups (p = 0.123; Kolomogorov–Smirnov test). f Comparison of response latencies. The latency was significantly increased in Mela(CTmGluR6) treated rd1 animals (556 ± 27 ms, n = 22 traces) in comparison to dark-adapted C57BL/6 mice (132 ± 18 ms, n = 9 traces, p < 0.000001; one-way ANOVA) and light-adapted C57BL/6 mice (108 ± 29 ms, n = 6 traces, p = <0.000002). No significant difference was observed between dark- and light-adapted C57BL/6 animals (p = 0.99). Latencies of light-intensity matched MEA recordings from RGCs of Mela(CTmGluR6) treated rd1 mice (481 ± 254 ms; n = 41 cells; 500 ms; 470 nm; 5 × 1013 photons/cm2/s) did not differ significantly from the V1 latencies in Mela(CtmGluR6) treated mice (p = 0.434). Data in bar plots shown as mean ± SD. Dots in plots represent individual measurements.

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