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A Comparative Study of Sleep, Diurnal Patterns, and Eye Closure Between the House Mouse (Mus Musculus) and African Spiny Mouse (Acomys Cahirinus)

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A Comparative Study of Sleep, Diurnal Patterns, and Eye Closure Between the House Mouse (Mus Musculus) and African Spiny Mouse (Acomys Cahirinus) University of Kentucky UKnowledge Theses and Dissertations--Biology Biology 2018 A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SLEEP, DIURNAL PATTERNS, AND EYE CLOSURE BETWEEN THE HOUSE MOUSE (MUS MUSCULUS) AND AFRICAN SPINY MOUSE (ACOMYS CAHIRINUS) Chanung Wang University of Kentucky, [email protected] Author ORCID Identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6418-3809 Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2018.193 Right click to open a feedback form in a new tab to let us know how this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Wang, Chanung, "A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SLEEP, DIURNAL PATTERNS, AND EYE CLOSURE BETWEEN THE HOUSE MOUSE (MUS MUSCULUS) AND AFRICAN SPINY MOUSE (ACOMYS CAHIRINUS)" (2018). Theses and Dissertations--Biology. 53. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/biology_etds/53 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Biology at UKnowledge. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations--Biology by an authorized administrator of UKnowledge. For more information, please contact [email protected]. STUDENT AGREEMENT: I represent that my thesis or dissertation and abstract are my original work. Proper attribution has been given to all outside sources. I understand that I am solely responsible for obtaining any needed copyright permissions. I have obtained needed written permission statement(s) from the owner(s) of each third-party copyrighted matter to be included in my work, allowing electronic distribution (if such use is not permitted by the fair use doctrine) which will be submitted to UKnowledge as Additional File. I hereby grant to The University of Kentucky and its agents the irrevocable, non-exclusive, and royalty-free license to archive and make accessible my work in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I agree that the document mentioned above may be made available immediately for worldwide access unless an embargo applies. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of my work. I understand that I am free to register the copyright to my work. REVIEW, APPROVAL AND ACCEPTANCE The document mentioned above has been reviewed and accepted by the student’s advisor, on behalf of the advisory committee, and by the Director of Graduate Studies (DGS), on behalf of the program; we verify that this is the final, approved version of the student’s thesis including all changes required by the advisory committee. The undersigned agree to abide by the statements above. Chanung Wang, Student Dr. Bruce F. O’Hara, Major Professor Dr. Dave Westneat, Director of Graduate Studies A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SLEEP, DIURNAL PATTERNS, AND EYE CLOSURE BETWEEN THE HOUSE MOUSE (MUS MUSCULUS) AND AFRICAN SPINY MOUSE (ACOMYS CAHIRINUS) DISSERTATION A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Kentucky By Chanung Wang Lexington, Kentucky Director: Dr. Bruce F. O’Hara, Professor of Biology Lexington, Kentucky 2018 Copyright © Chanung Wang 2018 ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SLEEP, DIURNAL PATTERNS, AND EYE CLOSURE BETWEEN THE HOUSE MOUSE (MUS MUSCULUS) AND AFRICAN SPINY MOUSE (ACOMYS CAHIRINUS) To understand the function and origins of sleep, sleep needs to be studied across many different species. Although it is well conserved throughout mammals, 95% of papers are restricted to just three species, Homo sapiens, Mus musculus, and Rattus norvegicus. We aimed to characterize sleep and wake in a Murid rodent Acomys cahirinus in greater detail alongside the well-studied laboratory house mouse (Mus musculus) and wild M. musculus using a well validated, non-invasive, piezoelectric system for sleep and activity monitoring. We confirmed A. cahirinus, M. musculus, and wild M. musculus to be primarily nocturnal, but with clearly distinct behavioral patterns. Specifically, the activity of A. cahirinus sharply increases right at dark onset, which is common in nocturnal species, but surprisingly, decreases sharply just one hour later. Using infra-red camera recordings in single and group cage conditions, we found that A. cahirinus is more active early in the night period than late night period in single and group cages, and this decreased activity in the latter half of the night is much greater compared to M. musculus. In order to better understand these differences in activity, we investigated the sleep architecture of A. cahirinus using electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings. Our data show that A. cahirinus have a few key differences in sleep from M. musculus. A. cahirinus have significantly longer daily sleep periods and exhibit a much higher amount of REM sleep. A. cahirinus are awake at dark onset, but sleep more than M. musculus after the middle of the night. Most strikingly, A. cahirinus do not close their eyes virtually at all while sleeping, day or night. In order to test whether the sleep patterns of A. cahirinus are affected by or responsive to different light input, we set up a light flashing experiment during the daytime. While sleep amount did not change significantly during light flashing, A. cahirinus spent significantly less time in REM compared to baseline. In contrast, M. musculus had no difference in REM sleep percentage. Histological studies showed A. cahirinus have thinner retinal layers, but much thicker corneas than M. musculus. Electroretinography (ERG) results, specifically b-wave amplitudes, are significantly different between these two species. While eye closure and sleep have not been systematically studied across mammals, our observation is clearly a rare behavior. This raises further questions about A. cahirinus sleep architecture, the adaptive value of eyes open sleep to A. cahirius and whether they may have limited visual processing even during normal sleep. KEYWORDS: Sleep, Diurnal patterns, Eye closure, Spiny Mice Chanung Wang Author signature April 24, 2018 Date A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SLEEP, DIURNAL PATTERNS, AND EYE CLOSURE BETWEEN THE HOUSE MOUSE (MUS MUSCULUS) AND AFRICAN SPINY MOUSE (ACOMYS CAHIRINUS) By Chanung Wang Dr. Bruce F. O’Hara Director of Dissertation Dr. Dave Westneat Director of Graduate Studies April 24, 2018 Date Dedicated to my family, Haessal, Roy, and Luna and our parents whose love and support made this possible ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I vividly remember when I came to the Department of Biology for the recruitment interview. Everyone in the biology department was very kind and supportive. Without the help of them, this work could not have been completed. Therefore, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to my fellow graduate members of the O’Hara Lab who helped me at every step, including: Dr. Martin Striz, Dr. Shreyas Joshi, Dr. Mansi Sethi, and Lauren (Ren) Guerriero. I’d like to offer a special thank you to the undergraduates who worked directly on the projects presented in this dissertation, including Trae Brooks and Jesse Giles. I would like to thank many colleagues in the Department of Biology who helped and supported along the way, especially Dr. Cole Malloy, Dr. Yuechen Zhu, Chelsea Weaver, Luc Dunoyer, Dr. Thomas (Tom) Gawriluk, Dr. Melissa Keinath, Dr. Jennifer Simkin, and Shishir Biswas. I would also like to thank many colleagues in UK, including: Asma’a Ajwad, Dillon Huffman, and Dr. Yuriko Katsumata. I would also like to thank my committee members: Dr. Ashley Seifert, Dr. Jeramiah Smith, and Dr. Kevin Donohue, as well as my outside examiner, Dr. Kenneth Haynes, for providing great suggestions and feedback to improve my researches during my Ph.D. study. Especially, I would like to offer my gratitude to Dr. Ashley Seifert for his guidance and support. Also, I’d like to express special thanks to Dr. Mark Kleinman and Kyung Sik Jung who helped me learn eye research and experimental techniques for the eye research. I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Bruce O’Hara for giving me great guidance. I absolutely believe that I have learn many things about sleep research and also great wisdom for science and life. He continuously encouraged and supported me to learn new things and to introduce to interesting projects. He has been and will be continuously a great mentor for science and my entire life. iii Lastly, I would like to thank my family who have provided endless support along the way. Especially, my lovely wife, Haessal Oh, has supported me for everything. Without her help, my work could not have been completed successfully. During my Ph.D. study, we have two lovely and healthy kids, Roy and Luna. It is the most thankful thing. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................... v LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 ....................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Background .................................................................................................................
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