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Effect of acute and chronic bilateral visual deafferentation on c-Fos immunoreactivity in the visual system of adult rats

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Abstract

In our study we examined acute and chronic changes in c-Fos expression patterns in the visual system of the rat after complete visual deafferentation. In 20 male Lewis rats, the retro-bulbar part of the optic nerve was sectioned bilaterally. Ten animals underwent c-Fos immunohistochemistry after 3 days and 10 animals after 3 weeks examining time-dependent changes. The control group consisted of 10 animals, which did not undergo any surgical manipulation. c-Fos expression in the rat visual system experienced significant changes after acute and chronic bilateral complete visual deafferentation. Acute decrease in c-Fos level was observed in the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus, intergeniculate leaflet, superficial gray layer of the superior colliculus and layers IV and V of the primary visual cortex. After chronic deafferentation, c-Fos expression was also found to be decreased in the optic and deep layers of the superior colliculus and layer VI of the primary visual cortex. No change in c-Fos expression was observed in the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus and layers I, II and III of the primary visual cortex. This work shows that secondary complete blindness does not lead to uniform decrease in c-Fos levels in all subcortical and cortical brain regions related to vision. These findings provide important information concerning expression of the immediate-early gene product c-Fos in secondary blind rodent models. It may further serve as a relevant baseline finding when electrical stimulation of the visual system is performed, aiding the assessment of visual neuroprosthesis using c-Fos as a functional mapping tool when evaluating different stimulus parameters in blind rodent models.

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Abbreviations

DAB:

Diaminobenzidine

DGN:

Dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus

Dp:

Deep layers of the superior colliculus

IGL:

Intergeniculate leaflet

LGN:

Lateral geniculate nucleus

mRNA:

Messenger ribonucleic acid

Op:

Optic layer of the superior colliculus

PBS:

Phosphate-buffered saline

PBST:

Phosphate-buffered saline with Triton X-100

SC:

Superior colliculus

SCN:

Suprachiasmatic hypothalamic nucleus

SuGr:

Superficial gray layer of the superior colliculus

VGN:

Ventral lateral geniculate nucleus

VGN_M:

Magnocellular division of the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus

VGN_P:

Parvocellular division of the ventral lateral geniculate nucleus

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to S. Lindemann, Ph.D., for his excellent assistance in the experiment. This work was supported by grants of the International Neurobionic Foundation.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standard

All experiments were conducted under an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee-approved protocol in accordance with the EU Directive 86/609/EEC.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurosurgery, International Neuroscience Institute Hannover, Rudolf-Pichlmayer-Straße 4, 30625, Hannover, Germany

    Rhea Wiedmann & Madjid Samii

  2. Department of Neurosurgery, Helios Klinikum Erfurt, Nordhäuser Straße 74, 99089, Erfurt, Germany

    Steffen K. Rosahl

  3. Neurosurgery Foundation Inc., Rhode Island Hospital, APC, 593 Eddy Street, Providence, RI, 02903, USA

    Thomas Brinker

  4. Department of Neurosurgery, Medical School Hannover, Carl-Neuberg-Str. 1, 30625, Hannover, Germany

    Makoto Nakamura

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  1. Rhea Wiedmann
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  2. Steffen K. Rosahl
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  4. Madjid Samii
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  5. Makoto Nakamura
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Correspondence to Makoto Nakamura.

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Wiedmann, R., Rosahl, S.K., Brinker, T. et al. Effect of acute and chronic bilateral visual deafferentation on c-Fos immunoreactivity in the visual system of adult rats. Exp Brain Res 229, 595–607 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-013-3623-0

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