Movement and novelty of a square wave display affect 2-deoxyglucose uptake in the rat visual system

The [14C]2-deoxy-glucose (2-DG) autoradiographic technique revealed that movement and novelty of a visual display affected rat visual system metabolic activity. Hooded rats were monocularly tested in a surround consisting of patterns of black and white, horizontal and vertical, square wave gratings of different spatial frequencies. For one group this display remained immobile ('stationary' group), and for the other group the display intermittently rotated at 1.5 rpm ('moving' group). Each of these main groups was subdivided such that half had six sessions of prior exposure to the test display ('experienced' group) and half had no prior exposure ('novel' group). The movement groups showed relatively greater 2-DG uptake than the stationary groups in the superior colliculus and in the caudal lateral posterior nucleus, while the novel groups showed greater uptake than the experienced groups in visual cortex.