Parameter optimization for automated behavior assessment: plug-and-play or trial-and-error?

Luyten, Laura; Schroyens, Natalie; Hermans, Dirk; Beckers, Tom

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00028

Cited by 20 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In addition, counterbalancing of contexts A and B was not possible because of unequal acquisition when using different grid floors. 39 The use of Long-Evans rats, which may perform better on discrimination tasks, 42 , 43 instead of Wistar rats, did not improve our results. Finally, we succeeded in fine-tuning the contextual characteristics and training parameters, thereby developing a robust contextual generalization gradient (Experiments 1 and 2).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 55%

“…Freezing during test was measured manually by a trained observer (continuous measurement with a stopwatch from video recordings), as previous findings indicated that comparison of software-scored freezing in different contexts was not reliable. 39 Percentage freezing was calculated as the percentage of time the rat was freezing during the 8-min test on Day 2. Data are from one observer in Experiment 1, and the average of two observers in all other studies.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

No effect of glucose administration in a novel contextual fear generalization protocol in rats

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The excessive transfer of fear acquired for one particular context to similar situations has been implicated in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorder. Recent evidence suggests that glucose ingestion improves the retention of context conditioning. It has been speculated that glucose might exert that effect by ameliorating hippocampal functioning, and may hold promise as a therapeutic add-on in traumatized patients because improved retention of contextual fear could help to restrict its generalization. However, direct data regarding the effect of glucose on contextual generalization are lacking. Here, we introduce a new behavioral protocol to study such contextual fear generalization in rats. In adult Wistar rats, our procedure yields a gradient of generalization, with progressively less freezing when going from the original training context, over a perceptually similar generalization context, to a markedly dissimilar context. Moreover, we find a flattening of the gradient when the training-test interval is prolonged with 1 week. We next examine the effect of systemic glucose administration on contextual generalization with this novel procedure. Our data do not sustain generalization-reducing effects of glucose and question its applicability in traumatic situations. In summary, we have developed a replicable contextual generalization procedure for rats and demonstrate how it is a valuable tool to examine the neurobiological correlates and test pharmacological interventions pertaining to an important mechanism in the etiology of pathological anxiety.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 55%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

No effect of glucose administration in a novel contextual fear generalization protocol in rats

et al. 2016

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Freezing behavior was scored manually with a stopwatch by two observers blind to the experimental condition (Luyten et al 2014). Freezing during each CS (i.e., the average of both raters) was expressed as percentage of the total CS duration (20 s).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A preregistered, direct replication attempt of the retrieval-extinction effect in cued fear conditioning in rats

Luyten

Beckers

2017

Neurobiology of Learning and Memory

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In 2009, Monfils and colleagues proposed a behavioral procedure that was said to result in a permanent attenuation of a previously established fear memory, thereby precluding a possible return of fear after extinction (Monfils, Cowansage, Klann, & LeDoux, 2009). By presenting a single retrieval trial one hour before standard extinction training, they found an enduring reduction of fear. The retrieval-extinction procedure holds great clinical potential, particularly for anxiety patients, but the findings are not undisputed, and several conceptual replications have failed to reproduce the effect. These failures have largely been attributed to small procedural differences. This preregistered study is the first endeavor to exactly replicate three key experiments of the original report by Monfils et al. (2009), thereby gauging the robustness of their seminal findings. Despite adhering to the original procedures as closely as possible, we did not find any evidence for reduced return of fear with the retrieval-extinction procedure relative to regular extinction training, as assessed through spontaneous recovery, reinstatement and renewal. Behavior of animals in the control condition (extinction only) was comparable to that in the original studies and provided an adequate baseline to reveal differences with the retrieval-extinction condition. Our null findings indicate that the effect sizes in the original paper may have been inflated and question the legitimacy of previously proposed moderators of the retrieval-extinction effect. We argue that direct experimental evaluation of purported moderators of the retrieval-extinction effect will be key to shed more light on its nature and prerequisites.

show abstract

“…An advantage of utilizing fear extinction to address these questions is that it provides a continuous readout of learning via a mouse's freezing, allowing us to examine the precise temporal relationship between DA and the expression of learned behavior. However, one limitation of freezing as a readout of learning is that it traditionally requires hand scoring when mice are tethered to neural headgear, as existing software confuses tether movement with mouse movement (Luyten et al 2014;Shoji et al 2014) . The need for human labeling has often restricted the analysis of freezing to specific epochs, such as the presentation of the conditioned stimuli.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distinct signals in medial and lateral VTA dopamine neurons modulate fear extinction at different times

Cai

Pizano

Gundersen

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dopamine (DA) neurons are known to encode reward prediction error (RPE), in addition to other signals, such as salience. While RPE is known to support learning, the role of salience in supporting learning remains less clear. To address this, we recorded and manipulated VTA DA neurons in mice during fear extinction, a behavior we observed to generate spatially segregated RPE and salience signals. We applied deep learning to classify mouse freezing behavior, eliminating the need for human scoring. Our fiber photometry recordings showed that DA neurons in medial and lateral VTA have distinct activity profiles during fear extinction: medial VTA activity more closely reflected RPE, while lateral VTA activity more closely reflected a salience-like signal. Optogenetic inhibition of DA neurons in either region slowed fear extinction, with the relevant time period for inhibition differing across regions. Our results indicate that salience-like signals can have similar downstream consequences to RPE-like signals, although with different temporal dependencies.

show abstract

Parameter optimization for automated behavior assessment: plug-and-play or trial-and-error?

Cited by 20 publications

References 24 publications

No effect of glucose administration in a novel contextual fear generalization protocol in rats

No effect of glucose administration in a novel contextual fear generalization protocol in rats

A preregistered, direct replication attempt of the retrieval-extinction effect in cued fear conditioning in rats

Distinct signals in medial and lateral VTA dopamine neurons modulate fear extinction at different times

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About