Meeting Abstract
Understanding the physiological limits of an animal’s visual system is an important part of studying its visual ecology. Without first determining what an animal is physiologically capable of sensing, it is difficult to ascertain what visual information in its environment could have behavioral significance. An effective way to assess the physiology of visual systems is via direct recording of the electrical activity of photoreceptors using a technique known as electroretinography (ERG). But accurate ERG can be time and labor intensive, often involving manual adjustment of the wavelength and intensity of light stimuli and real-time comparison of physiological responses to inform those adjustments. Furthermore, because stimulus adjustment often involves its own skillset, ERG can require expertise beyond that necessary for the electrophysiological preparation itself. To improve both the efficiency and accessibility of ERG, we designed a highly automated system for both stimulus presentation and data acquisition. Rather than relying on manual adjustment of stimuli and real-time comparison of response, our system automatically adjusts the intensity of all light stimuli to specified photon flux. In addition, light control can be achieved through a series of prompts, allowing users to set up and run automated trials after answering a set of basic questions about the experiment. Here we test this novel system’s ability to accurately assess spectral sensitivity in the well characterized visual system of the crayfish using both existing magnitude of response and novel temporal acuity based techniques, where higher magnitude of response and temporal acuity denote greater sensitivity. Using this system, we find that we are able to acquire highly accurate, reproducible results in ERG experiments quickly and with minimal training beyond introduction to electrophysiology.
