Motion Discrimination and the Motion Aftereffect in Mouse Vision

Prolonged exposure to motion in one direction often leads to the illusion of motion in the opposite direction for stationary objects. This motion aftereffect likely arises across several visual areas from adaptive changes in the balance of activity and competitive interactions. We examined whether or not the mouse was susceptible to this same illusion to determine whether it would be a suitable model for learning about the neural representation of the motion aftereffect. Under a classical conditioning paradigm, mice learned to lick when presented with motion in one direction and not the opposite direction. When the mice were adapted to motion preceding this test, their lick behavior for zero coherence motion was biased for motion in the opposite direction of the adapting stimulus. Overall, lick count versus motion coherence shifted in the opposite direction of the adapting stimulus. This suggests that although the mouse has a simpler visual system compared with primates, it still is subject to the motion aftereffect and may elucidate the underlying circuitry.