Food and water restriction lead to differential learning behaviors in a head-fixed two-choice visual discrimination task for mice

Goltstein, Pieter M.; Reinert, Sandra; Glas, Annet; Bonhoeffer, Tobias; Hübener, Mark

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0204066

Cited by 54 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Even though this paper focuses on individually-housed mice as the initial step for the validation of the proposed CST-based home cage monitoring system, the activation density metric that we introduced in this paper can be generally extended to an arbitrary number of mice grouped in the same home cage. This has been actually already tested successfully in early applications of the proposed system [24], [26], [27] where activity of group-housed mice have been addressed. The derivation of new metrics as well as the validations for grouped mice are ongoing and will be subject of future investigations.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-intrusive high throughput automated data collection from the home cage

Iannello¹

2019

Heliyon

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Automated home cage monitoring represents a key technology to collect animal activity information directly from the home cage. The availability of 24/7 cage data enables extensive and quantitative assessment of mouse behavior and activity over long periods of time than possible otherwise. When home cage monitoring is performed directly at the home cage rack, it is possible to leverage additional advantages, including, e.g., partial (or total) reduction of animal handling, no need for setting up external data collection system as well as not requiring dedicated labs and personnel to perform tests. In this work we introduce a home cage-home rack monitoring system that is capable of continuously detecting spontaneous animal activity occurring in the home cage directly from the home cage rack. The proposed system is based on an electrical capacitance sensing technology that enables non-intrusive and continuous home cage monitoring. We then present a few animal activity metrics that are validated via comparison against a video camera-based tracking system. The results show that the proposed home-cage monitoring system can provide animal activity metrics that are comparable to the ones derived via a conventional video tracking system, with the advantage of system scalability, limited amount of both data generated and computational capabilities required to derive metrics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-intrusive high throughput automated data collection from the home cage

Iannello¹

2019

Heliyon

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“…During training, mice were supplemented with HydroGel depending on the amount of water obtained in each particular session to keep their body weight at or above 85% of the their initial weight (Goltstein et al, 2018), typically 1.2 mL water (or HydroGel equivalent) per day. In addition, once per week (prior to non-training days), mice received 2.0 g of HydroGel.…”

Section: Behavioral Trainingmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Distributed Circuit for Associating Environmental Context to Motor Choice in Retrosplenial Cortex

Franco

Goard

2020

Preprint

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During navigation, animals often use recognition of familiar environmental contexts to guide motor action selection. The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) receives inputs from both visual cortex and subcortical regions required for spatial memory, and projects to motor planning regions. However, it is not known whether RSC is important for associating familiar environmental contexts with specific motor actions. Here, we test this possibility by developing a task in which trajectories are chosen based on the context. We find that mice exhibit differential pre-decision activity in RSC, and that optogenetic suppression of RSC activity impairs task performance. Individual RSC neurons encode a range of task variables, often multiplexed with distinct temporal profiles. However, the responses are spatiotemporally organized, with task variables represented along a posterior-to-anterior gradient along RSC during the behavioral performance, consistent with histological characterization. These results reveal an anatomically-organized retrosplenial cortical circuit for associating environmental contexts to appropriate motor outputs.

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“…It was shown that training animals on the same operant task using either food or water reward had similar mild effects on animal wellbeing, while animals receiving water reward acquired the task faster, and were more motivated to work for reward 41 . In addition, fluid reward avoids chewing artifacts, making it easier to combine with neuronal recordings; therefore, we modified the 5CSRTT protocol to provide water reward instead of food pellets, and demonstrated fast training with water rewards.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid learning of the 5-choice serial reaction time task in an automated rodent training system

Birtalan

Bánhidi

et al. 2020

Preprint

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11Experiments aiming to understand sensory-motor systems, cognition and behavior often require animals 12 trained to perform complex tasks. Traditional training protocols require lab personnel to move the animals 13 between home cages and training chambers, to start and end training sessions, and in some cases, to 14 hand-control each training trial. Human labor not only limits the amount of training per day, but also 15 introduces several sources of variability and may increase animal stress. Here we present an automated 16 training system for the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT), a classic rodent task often used to test 17 sensory detection, sustained attention and impulsivity. We found that fully automated training without 18 human intervention greatly increased the speed and efficiency of learning, and decreased stress as 19 measured by corticosterone levels. Introducing training breaks did not cancel these beneficial effects of 20 automated training, and mice readily generalized across training systems when transferred from 21 automated to manual protocols. Additionally, we validated our automated training system with mice 22 implanted with wireless optogenetic stimulators, expanding the breadth of experimental needs our 23 system may fulfill. Our automated 5CSRTT system can serve as a prototype for fully automated behavioral 24 training, with methods and principles transferrable to a range of rodent tasks. 25 A few automated training systems have been developed for rodent behavioral tasks 8-15 , including 5-choice 40 serial reaction time task (5CSRTT) 16,17 , in order to standardize the training and reduce the effects of human 41 factors and other random variables. While these systems provide means for large capacity automated 42 training of rodents, most of them are customized to train a specific task variant, and/or contain expensive, 43proprietary components. For these reasons, automated behavioral training of the 5CSRTT task has not yet 44 become widespread. Here we developed an affordable, open source, high-throughput automated training 45 system for mice and demonstrate its use on an automated protocol of the widely used 5CSRTT assay 18-21 . 46 We show that use of this Automated Training System (ATS) allows faster training of mice, and that 47

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Food and water restriction lead to differential learning behaviors in a head-fixed two-choice visual discrimination task for mice

Cited by 54 publications

References 35 publications

Non-intrusive high throughput automated data collection from the home cage

Non-intrusive high throughput automated data collection from the home cage

A Distributed Circuit for Associating Environmental Context to Motor Choice in Retrosplenial Cortex

Rapid learning of the 5-choice serial reaction time task in an automated rodent training system

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