Sex differences in visually guided orienting behavior emerges during adolescence in mice

Studying prey hunting behavior in mice provides an ideal opportunity to identify mechanisms that control visual stimulus detection and orienting in the mammalian brain. Emerging work has shown that visual orienting varies during development in a way that reflects the maturity of the underlying visual system. However, it was unknown whether mice varied in visual orienting and prey hunting during adolescence when many underlying motivational and attentional systems are in flux. We therefore quantified visual orienting in freely moving adolescent and adult mice of both sexes during prey capture versus when presented visual motion only. Robust sex differences in innate visual orienting and predatory aggression first emerge during adolescence when females are more likely to approach visual motion and males more likely to arrest, yet, females display the least predatory aggression. Thus, females and males display opposing visual orienting and predatory bias, which are dissociated during adolescence in mouse.