title: Automated identification of mouse visual areas with intrinsic signal imaging.
abstract: Intrinsic signal optical imaging (ISI) is a rapid and noninvasive method for observing brain activity in vivo over a large area of the cortex. Here we describe our protocol for mapping retinotopy to identify mouse visual cortical areas using ISI. First, surgery is performed to attach a head frame to the mouse skull (∼1 h). The next day, intrinsic activity across the visual cortex is recorded during the presentation of a full-field drifting bar in the horizontal and vertical directions (∼2 h). Horizontal and vertical retinotopic maps are generated by analyzing the response of each pixel during the period of the stimulus. Last, an algorithm uses these retinotopic maps to compute the visual field sign and coverage, and automatically construct visual borders without human input. Compared with conventional retinotopic mapping with episodic presentation of adjacent stimuli, a continuous, periodic stimulus is more resistant to biological artifacts. Furthermore, unlike manual hand-drawn approaches, we present a method for automatically segmenting visual areas, even in the small mouse cortex. This relatively simple procedure and accompanying open-source code can be implemented with minimal surgical and computational experience, and is useful to any laboratory wishing to target visual cortical areas in this increasingly valuable model system.
authors.affiliation: Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Ashley L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Juavinett
authors.affiliation: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, USA.
authors.forename: Ian
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Nauhaus
authors.affiliation: The Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: Marina E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Garrett
authors.affiliation: The Allen Institute for Brain Science, Seattle, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zhuang
authors.affiliation: Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, California, USA.
authors.forename: Edward M
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Callaway
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001331:Automation; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D014794:Visual Fields