Temporal structure in spiking patterns of ganglion cells defines perceptual thresholds in rodents with subretinal prosthesis

Subretinal prostheses are designed to restore sight in patients blinded by retinal degeneration using electrical stimulation of the inner retinal neurons. To relate retinal output to perception, we studied behavioral thresholds in blind rats with photovoltaic subretinal prostheses stimulated by full-field pulsed illumination at 20 Hz, and measured retinal ganglion cell (RGC) responses to similar stimuli ex-vivo. Behaviorally, rats exhibited startling response to changes in brightness, with an average contrast threshold of 12%, which could not be explained by changes in the average RGC spiking rate. However, RGCs exhibited millisecond-scale variations in spike timing, even when the average rate did not change significantly. At 12% temporal contrast, changes in firing patterns of prosthetic response were as significant as with 2.3% contrast steps in visible light stimulation of healthy retinas. This suggests that millisecond-scale changes in spiking patterns define perceptual thresholds of prosthetic vision. Response to the last pulse in the stimulation burst lasted longer than the steady-state response during the burst. This may be interpreted as an excitatory OFF response to prosthetic stimulation, and can explain behavioral response to decrease in illumination. Contrast enhancement of images prior to delivery to subretinal prosthesis can partially compensate for reduced contrast sensitivity of prosthetic vision.

Chronic stress induces dendritic atrophy in the rat medial geniculate nucleus: effects on auditory conditioning

Chronic stress induces dendritic atrophy in the inferior colliculus (IC, auditory mesencephalon) and impairs auditory avoidance conditioning. The aim of this study was to determine in Golgi preparations and in cued fear conditioning whether stress affects other auditory components, like the thalamic medial geniculate nucleus (MG) or the posterior thalamic nucleus (PO), in Sprague-Dawley rats. Chronic restraint stress produced a significant dendritic atrophy in the MG (stress: 407+/-55 microm; control: 808+/-120 microm; p<0.01) but did not affect auditory fear conditioning. The last result was in apparent contrast with the fact that stress impairs both the acquisition of auditory avoidance conditioned responses and the dendritic structure in two major nuclei of the auditory system. In order to analyze this disagreement, we investigated whether the stress-related freezing to tone occurring in the fear conditioning protocol corresponded to a conditioned or an unconditioned fear response, using changes in tone instead of light throughout conditioning trials. Chronic stress significantly enhanced visual fear conditioning in stressed animals compared to controls (stress: 58.9+/-8.42%, control: 23.31+/-8.01%; p<0.05), but this fear enhancement was related to unconditioned fear. Conversely, chronic stress did not affect the morphology of the PO (subserving both auditory and somatosensory information) or the corresponding auditory and somatosensory unconditioned responses (acoustic startle response and escape behavior). Our results suggest that the auditory conditioned stimulus can be processed in part independently of the IC and MG in the stressed animals, and sent to the amygdala via the PO inducing unconditioned fear. Comparable alterations could be produced in major depression.

Reversible inactivation of the auditory thalamus disrupts HPA axis habituation to repeated loud noise stress exposures

Although habituation to stress is a widely observed adaptive mechanism in response to repeated homotypic challenge exposure, its brain location and mechanism of plasticity remains elusive. And while habituation-related plasticity has been suggested to take place in central limbic regions, recent evidence suggests that sensory sites may provide the underlying substrate for this function. For instance, several brainstem, midbrain, thalamic, and/or cortical auditory processing areas, among others, could support habituation-related plasticity to repeated loud noise exposures. In the present study, the auditory thalamus was tested for its putative role in habituation to repeated loud noise exposures, in rats. The auditory thalamus was inactivated reversibly by muscimol injections during repeated loud noise exposures to determine if brainstem or midbrain auditory nuclei would be sufficient to support habituation to this specific stressor, as measured during an additional and drug-free loud noise exposure test. Our results indicate that auditory thalamic inactivation by muscimol disrupts acute HPA axis response specifically to loud noise. Importantly, habituation to repeated loud noise exposures was also prevented by reversible auditory thalamic inactivation, suggesting that this form of plasticity is likely mediated at, or in targets of, the auditory thalamus.

Electrolytic, but not neurotoxic, lesions to the lateral tegmental tract increase acoustic startle amplitude and reduce startle stimulus-induced freezing

Startle amplitude and startle stimulus-induced freezing (an index of fear) were measured in a standard acoustic startle response (ASR) paradigm in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Groups with electrolytic lesions to the lateral tegmental tract (LTG) or with axon-sparing lesions to the area around LTG made with the neurotoxin NMDA were compared with vehicle-injected or sham operated control groups on these response measures. Replicating previous results (Leaton & Brucato, 2001), electrolytic lesions to LTG significantly reduced freezing and produced a persistent 300% increase in ASR amplitude compared with all other groups. The NMDA lesions had no effect on freezing or on ASR amplitude compared with the controls. In additional testing the rats with electrolytic lesions to LTG did not differ from controls in the acquisition or retention of context freezing using a footshock unconditioned stimulus. The data made a small, but necessary, step in further clarifying two pathways that modify ASR. The source of the descending pathway that provides tonic inhibition of the sensory input to the ASR circuitry is not within the LTG. The ascending pathway that carries the fear-inducing dimensions of the acoustic stimulus to the amygdala by way of the medial geniculate nucleus does not have an intermediate synapse in the area within LTG.