What is the relation between delayed eyelid opening and brain development in rats? How can I correlate delayed eyelid opening with brain circuit development?
Hello Sakthivel, there is a lot of literature about dark rearing from birth, but not so much on delayed eye opening. My lab recently showed that delaying eye opening with binocular eyelid suture allows GABA synapses in the visual cortex to remain sensitive to cannabinoid signaling (Garkun and Maffei, Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, 2014). In general it seems that the main effect of altered visual drive from birth leads to delayed maturation of GABAergic and glutamatergic synapses. So markers for receptors subunits and electrophysiological recordings can be used to quantify the changes in the visual cortex. I am not sure other brain areas would be as affected by visual manipulations. They might, but it would be very hard to relate the changes to the delayed eye opening and not to increased use of a different sensory modality.
Firstly, the delayed eyelid (or eyeblink) opening is a reflex response and is an automatic response of the peripheral nervous system, .Rat, Rabbits and other mammals typically perform this response. Secondly, the performance of this response are correlated as a well indicator of neurological development because the reflex response is a basic function of the nervous system and one that involves the survival to the animal. Thirdly, in neurological terms, the neuronal circuit involved in this function can be divided in two facts: one is the component in the brain that control and regulate these reflexes responses, in the humans known as hindbrain; and the other hand, you can be interest about the the sensory neurons and motor neurons that control these reflex response like a eyeblink.
I have some papers that could be useful,
I hope that helps
Steven is right. This is a reflex response and automatic response too, occurring naturally in pups (neonates). Arianna is also right in the sense that glutamergic and gabaergic neuronal circuits are involved in this response. The delayed observed could be due to alteration of at least one of these circuits. We experimented that when we intoxicate rats and mice with heavy metals ( females during gestation)
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