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Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms

The IntelliCage allows automated testing of cognitive abilities of mice in a social home cage environment without handling by human experimenters. Restricted water access in combination with protocols in which only correct responses give access to water is a reliable learning motivator for hippocamp...

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Autores principales: Ma, Xueqian, Schildknecht, Beatrice, Steiner, Adrian C., Amrein, Irmgard, Nigri, Martina, Bramati, Giulia, Wolfer, David P.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10687469/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38033480
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1232546
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author Ma, Xueqian
Schildknecht, Beatrice
Steiner, Adrian C.
Amrein, Irmgard
Nigri, Martina
Bramati, Giulia
Wolfer, David P.
author_facet Ma, Xueqian
Schildknecht, Beatrice
Steiner, Adrian C.
Amrein, Irmgard
Nigri, Martina
Bramati, Giulia
Wolfer, David P.
author_sort Ma, Xueqian
collection PubMed
description The IntelliCage allows automated testing of cognitive abilities of mice in a social home cage environment without handling by human experimenters. Restricted water access in combination with protocols in which only correct responses give access to water is a reliable learning motivator for hippocampus-dependent tasks assessing spatial memory and executive function. However, water restriction may negatively impact on animal welfare, especially in poor learners. To better comply with the 3R principles, we previously tested protocols in which water was freely available but additional access to sweetened water could be obtained by learning a task rule. While this purely appetitive motivation worked for simple tasks, too many mice lost interest in the sweet reward during more difficult hippocampus-dependent tasks. In the present study, we tested a battery of increasingly difficult spatial tasks in which water was still available without learning the task rule, but rendered less attractive either by adding bitter tasting quinine or by increasing the amount of work to obtain it. As in previous protocols, learning of the task rule provided access to water sweetened with saccharin. The two approaches of dual motivation were tested in two cohorts of female C57BL/6 N mice. Compared to purely appetitive motivation, both novel protocols strongly improved task engagement and increased task performance. Importantly, neither of the added disincentives had an adverse impact on liquid consumption, health status or body weight of the animals. Our results show that it is possible to refine test protocols in the IntelliCage so that they challenge cognitive functions without restricting access to water.
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spelling pubmed-106874692023-11-30 Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms Ma, Xueqian Schildknecht, Beatrice Steiner, Adrian C. Amrein, Irmgard Nigri, Martina Bramati, Giulia Wolfer, David P. Front Behav Neurosci Behavioral Neuroscience The IntelliCage allows automated testing of cognitive abilities of mice in a social home cage environment without handling by human experimenters. Restricted water access in combination with protocols in which only correct responses give access to water is a reliable learning motivator for hippocampus-dependent tasks assessing spatial memory and executive function. However, water restriction may negatively impact on animal welfare, especially in poor learners. To better comply with the 3R principles, we previously tested protocols in which water was freely available but additional access to sweetened water could be obtained by learning a task rule. While this purely appetitive motivation worked for simple tasks, too many mice lost interest in the sweet reward during more difficult hippocampus-dependent tasks. In the present study, we tested a battery of increasingly difficult spatial tasks in which water was still available without learning the task rule, but rendered less attractive either by adding bitter tasting quinine or by increasing the amount of work to obtain it. As in previous protocols, learning of the task rule provided access to water sweetened with saccharin. The two approaches of dual motivation were tested in two cohorts of female C57BL/6 N mice. Compared to purely appetitive motivation, both novel protocols strongly improved task engagement and increased task performance. Importantly, neither of the added disincentives had an adverse impact on liquid consumption, health status or body weight of the animals. Our results show that it is possible to refine test protocols in the IntelliCage so that they challenge cognitive functions without restricting access to water. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-11-16 /pmc/articles/PMC10687469/ /pubmed/38033480 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1232546 Text en Copyright © 2023 Ma, Schildknecht, Steiner, Amrein, Nigri, Bramati and Wolfer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Behavioral Neuroscience
Ma, Xueqian
Schildknecht, Beatrice
Steiner, Adrian C.
Amrein, Irmgard
Nigri, Martina
Bramati, Giulia
Wolfer, David P.
Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
title Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
title_full Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
title_fullStr Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
title_full_unstemmed Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
title_short Refinement of IntelliCage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
title_sort refinement of intellicage protocols for complex cognitive tasks through replacement of drinking restrictions by incentive-disincentive paradigms
topic Behavioral Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10687469/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38033480
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2023.1232546
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