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Formation of the Looming-evoked Innate Defensive Response during Postnatal Development in Mice

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Abstract

Environmental threats often trigger innate defensive responses in mammals. However, the gradual development of functional properties of these responses during the postnatal development stage remains unclear. Here, we report that looming stimulation in mice evoked flight behavior commencing at P14–16 and had fully developed by P20–24. The visual-evoked innate defensive response was not significantly altered by sensory deprivation at an early postnatal stage. Furthermore, the percentages of wide-field and horizontal cells in the superior colliculus were notably elevated at P20–24. Our findings define a developmental time window for the formation of the visual innate defense response during the early postnatal period and provide important insight into the underlying mechanism.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31930047, 91732304 and 31630031); The Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Science (XDB32030100); Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Connectome and Behavior (2017B030301017); the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2018A030313439); a Shenzhen Government grant (JCYJ20170413164535041); Shenzhen Key Science and Technology Infrastructure Planning Project (ZDKJ20190204002); Key Laboratory of CAS (2019DP173024); The Ten Thousand Talents Program; The Guangdong Special Support Program; Chang Jiang Scholars Program; International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (172644KYS820170004); and the Key-Area Research and Development Program of Guangdong Province (2018B030331001).

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  1. Shanping Chen and Huiying Tan have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Lab of Neuropsychiatric Modulation, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Brain Connectome and Behavior, CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Connectome and Manipulation, the Brain Cognition and Brain Disease Institute, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen-Hong Kong Institute of Brain Science-ShenzhenFundamental Research Institutions, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Shanping Chen, Huiying Tan, Zhijie Wang, Yu-ting Tseng, Xiaotao Li & Liping Wang

  2. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Xiaotao Li

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Shanping Chen & Huiying Tan

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Chen, S., Tan, H., Wang, Z. et al. Formation of the Looming-evoked Innate Defensive Response during Postnatal Development in Mice. Neurosci. Bull. 38, 741–752 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12264-022-00821-0

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