Queensland Brain Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia.
J Exp Biol. 2014 Feb 1;217(Pt 3):323-6. doi: 10.1242/jeb.092478.
Vision is one of the most efficient senses used by animals to catch prey and avoid predators. Therefore, any deficiency in the visual system could have important consequences for individual performance. We examined the effect of CO2 levels projected to occur by the end of this century on retinal responses in a damselfish, by determining the threshold of its flicker electroretinogram (fERG). The maximal flicker frequency of the retina was reduced by continuous exposure to elevated CO2, potentially impairing the capacity of fish to react to fast events. This effect was rapidly counteracted by treatment with a GABA antagonist (gabazine), indicating that GABAA receptor function is disrupted by elevated CO2. In addition to demonstrating the effects of elevated CO2 on fast flicker fusion of marine fishes, our results show that the fish retina could be a model system to study the effects of high CO2 on neural processing.
视觉是动物捕食和躲避捕食者最有效的感官之一。因此，视觉系统的任何缺陷都可能对个体表现产生重要影响。我们通过测定其闪烁视网膜电图（fERG）的阈值，来检测预计本世纪末 CO2 水平升高对雀鲷视网膜反应的影响。持续暴露于高 CO2 中会降低视网膜的最大闪烁频率，可能会降低鱼类对快速事件做出反应的能力。用 GABA 拮抗剂（gabazine）处理可迅速逆转这种影响，表明 GABAA 受体功能被升高的 CO2 破坏。除了证明 CO2 升高对海洋鱼类快速闪烁融合的影响外，我们的结果还表明，鱼类视网膜可能是研究高 CO2 对神经处理影响的模型系统。
