The Five‐Choice Continuous Performance Task (5C‐CPT): A Cross‐Species Relevant Paradigm for Assessment of Vigilance and Response Inhibition in Rodents

Abstract

Deficits in the domains of attention and response inhibition are central to many psychiatric disorders. As such, animal models of disorders purporting to replicate these behavioral deficits first require tests that can accurately assess the behaviors with high fidelity. The gold-standard clinical test of attention and response inhibition is the continuous performance test (CPT). Although there are a number of CPTs, all share the premise of responding to target stimuli and inhibiting from responding to non-target stimuli. The recently developed rodent five-choice CPT (5C-CPT) requires similar behavioral responses, enabling signal detection parameter calculations. With demonstrable feasibility for rodent testing, the 5C-CPT permits/facilitates: (1) delineation of neural mechanisms underlying these behaviors; (2) multifactorial analyses of the complex interplay between genetic and environmental manipulations relevant to psychiatric disorders; and hence (3) development of novel targeted treatments. All data to date indicate that the rodent 5C-CPT described here has direct translatability to clinical CPTs, producing equivalent measures of behavior in experimental animals to those assessed in humans. The 5C-CPT task provides an important tool toward delineating these mechanisms and developing treatments. However, it is also complex, with long training times and nuances requiring a thorough understanding before utilization. This unit will enable researchers to avoid potential missteps, greatly increasing the likelihood of success. © 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Mice with reduced DAT levels recreate seasonal-induced switching between states in bipolar disorder

“…Food (Harlan Teklad, Madison, WI) and water were available ad libitum except during training and testing. In food reinforced experiments, food was restricted to maintain mice at~85% full body weight as is common [40][41][42]. All mice were maintained in an animal facility that meets all federal and state requirements for animal care and was approved by the American Association for Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care.…”

The 5 choice continuous performance test (5C-CPT): A novel tool to assess cognitive control across species

“…When first training rats in the 5-to-1 target-to-non-target stimuli task, it was observed they did not differentiate target from non-target trials, responding to all stimuli (Barnes et al, 2012), in contrast with mice (Young et al, 2009). Hence, training in a 2-to-1 ratio was first required to make the non-target stimuli more salient and is recommended for use (Cope and Young, 2017). …”

“…The protocol involves habituation to the testing chambers, fixed-ratio reward habituation, and then fixed-ratio response training. Once responding reliably, rodents are trained to respond to single target stimuli and inhibit from responding to non-target stimuli (Cope and Young, 2017). Once fully trained, rodents can then be challenged in various conditions to assess different cognitive control processes (e.g., distractibility; Young et al, 2011), described in detail in Cope et al, (2016a), with further details below.…”

Nicotine withdrawal-induced inattention is absent in alpha7 nAChR knockout mice

“…Secondary outcome variables include the responsivity index (RI) to represent bias of responding, as well as accuracy (the proportion of correct responses to incorrect responses), latencies to correct target responses (mean correct latency, MCL), total trials, the % of omitted trials, and the % of premature responses representing motoric impulsivity/temporal discrimination (Cope et al 2016). The calculation for each variable is thoroughly described elsewhere (Cope and Young 2016). …”