Behavioral Evidence of Blast-induced Tinnitus in Chinchilla using Preyer
Reflex.
Abstract
Prepulse inhibition (PPI) of acoustic startle reflex (ASR) measures
sensory-motor gating. Further, it provides a platform to assess tinnitus
using a gap as a prepulse in the middle of background noise (GPIAS).
Despite its validity and debate on neural circuits, GPIAS is being
tested on various species, such as rats, mice, guinea pigs, and gerbils.
However, there is a considerable lack of evidence of PPI on chinchillas
which is an ideal animal model in auditory studies. When optimizing
parameters, we used the set parameters to assess blast-induced tinnitus
using GPIAS. In this study, before subjecting animals to GPIAS,
inhibition of startle using an NBPIAS paradigm was measured using a
noise-burst as a prepulse stimulus and was presented 200 ms before the
startle stimuli (broadband noise bursts at 120 dB SPL, 20 ms with
rise/fall time of 1 ms). The prepulse: no prepulse ratio was calculated
based on the Preyer response from the trials with and without prepulse.
However, whole-body movement responses were also collected. The animals
that robustly exhibited PPI were subjected to the GPIAS paradigm to
measure inhibition of startle response using gap detection as a cue. In
GPIAS, the background noise is either a narrow-band noise (one-third of
octave bandwidth) centered at 1, 2, 4, 8 & 10 kHz or broadband noise
presented at 75 dB SPL for 30 s before the presentation of startle
stimuli. A gap duration of 100 ms was introduced into background noise
in 50% of the trials at 200 ms before the startle stimuli. Both startle
response magnitude and pinna displacement were measured. The gap startle
ratio was calculated for a given frequency. Before blast exposure,
tinnitus was measured by gap detection using prepulse inhibition. The
flexion of the pinna was tracked using four IR cameras with reflective
markers on the pinna and the center of the body. X, Y & Z coordinates
over time were exported to MATLAB, and the magnitude of Preyer’s reflex
was calculated for all error-free trials using pinna displacement.
Importantly, in addition to the Preyer reflex, for analysis, we used
logarithmized ASR ratios with a normal distribution instead of raw PPI
values of non-normal distribution to infer GPIAS deficits. The
parametric study of GPIAS using logarithmized ASR ratios provides a
better interpretation of GPIAS deficits. Using the Preyer reflex instead
of whole-body movement provides a better interpretation of GPIAS
deficits in chinchillas. These results set the platform for using
Chinchilla as a model to study tinnitus using the GPIAS paradigm.