Meeting Abstract
Understanding the physiological limits of an animal’s visual system is an important part of studying their visual ecology. Without first determining what an animal is physiologically capable of perceiving, 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 can involve its own skillset, ERG often requires expertise beyond that necessary for the electrophysiological preparation itself. To improve both the efficiency and accessibility of ERG, we designed a highly automatable protocol leveraging wavelength-dependent changes in temporal acuity to assess animals’ spectral sensitivity. Rather than determining spectral sensitivity by comparing the electrical response intensities between different wavelengths of light, our protocol assesses spectral sensitivity by comparing flicker fusion frequency between intensity-balanced wavelengths: decreased flicker fusion frequency suggests lower sensitivity to a wavelength. To utilize this protocol, we designed an automated stimulus presentation and data acquisition system for ERG. Here we compare our new technique to conventional approaches using classical electrophysiological model organisms to assess its merit.
