Mice vision may unravel natural vision connect to brain circuitry

Mice may have poor vision when compared to humans, but how their visual system works when they go after prey may provide insights on how human brains make decisions based on visual cues, say University of Oregon researchers.

Most studies that have probed the brain circuitry connected to natural visual behaviors in mice have focused on fear response avoiding becoming prey. Mice are color blind, and their visual acuity is more than 100 times worse than a human's, suggesting that their vision is so poor that they could never provide insight into the visual functions of higher order mammals such as humans.

An approach developed at the UO, however, may help extend the use of mice as a model for studying vision. In a study published online Oct. 20 ahead of print in the journal Current Biology, UO researchers demonstrated that mice actually use their eyesight to catch prey—in their experiments, a cricket. To pursue that idea, Hoy placed a cricket in a mouse's habitat, a small box with plain white sides where the cricket was quickly caught and eaten.

The next step was to determine which senses the mouse used to locate and approach its prey. In a series of experiments, Hoy's four-member research team showed that a mouse is dramatically more successful at following and catching a cricket when it is able to see it. When placed in a lighted arena, nearly all of the mice tested (96 percent) became successful in rapidly and reliably capturing a cricket.