Acuidade visual e matriz extracelular no córtex visual primário: alterações associadas à privação monocular precoce e ao enriquecimento ambiental

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to analyze the influence of enriched environment on the visual acuity and on the distribution of perineuronal nets (PNNs) in the primary visual cortex of albino mice that underwent monocular deprivation during the critical period of postnatal development. Mice at 10th postnatal day, were monocular deprived through right eye-lid sutured (M, n = 16) and the control group animals were not submitted to any cirurgical procedures (B, n = 16). After weaning, on postnatal day 21, animals were subdivided in: standard environment (AP) and enriched environment (AE), constituting the following groups: M.AP, M.AE, B.AP and B.AE. After 3 months, animals were submitted to grating visual acuity tests, perfused and coronal sections of their brains processed for Wisteria floribunda agglutinin to posterior stereological quantification through optical fractionator method. B.AP animals present visual acuity of 0.48 cycles/degree, while those raised in enriched environment (B.AE) present a better performance at visual test, reaching 0.996 cycles/degree. Animals with monocular deprivation had significantly lower visual acuity (M.AP 0.18 cycles/degree; M.AE 0.4 cycles/degree). Stereological quantifications revealed that enriched environment increases type 1 and the total number of perineuronal nets at supragranular and granular layers in both hemispheres of deprived animals (ANOVA, two-ways, p < 0.05) and this difference at granular layer is due to an increase of perineuronal nets mainly at the right hemisphere (ipsilateral to the monocular deprivation). At infragranular layer, M.AE animals presented an increase only at the number of type 1 PNNs in both hemispheres.