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Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice

A major challenge in neuroscience is relating neuronal activity to animal behavior. In olfaction limited techniques are available for these correlation studies in freely moving animals. To solve this problem, we developed an olfactory behavioral assay in head-restrained mice where we can monitor beh...

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Autores principales: Abraham, Nixon M., Guerin, Delphine, Bhaukaurally, Khaleel, Carleton, Alan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3525655/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23272168
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051789
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author Abraham, Nixon M.
Guerin, Delphine
Bhaukaurally, Khaleel
Carleton, Alan
author_facet Abraham, Nixon M.
Guerin, Delphine
Bhaukaurally, Khaleel
Carleton, Alan
author_sort Abraham, Nixon M.
collection PubMed
description A major challenge in neuroscience is relating neuronal activity to animal behavior. In olfaction limited techniques are available for these correlation studies in freely moving animals. To solve this problem, we developed an olfactory behavioral assay in head-restrained mice where we can monitor behavioral responses with high temporal precision. Mice were trained on a go/no-go operant conditioning paradigm to discriminate simple monomolecular odorants, as well as complex odorants such as binary mixtures of monomolecular odorants or natural odorants. Mice learned to discriminate both simple and complex odors in a few hundred trials with high accuracy. We then compared the discrimination performance of head-restrained mice to the performance observed in freely moving mice. Discrimination accuracies were comparable in both behavioral paradigms. In addition, discrimination times were measured while the animals performed well. In both tasks, mice discriminated simple odors in a few hundred milliseconds and took additional time to discriminate the complex mixtures. In conclusion, mice showed similar and efficient discrimination behavior while head-restrained compared with freely moving mice. Therefore, the head-restrained paradigm offers a relevant approach to monitor neuronal activity while animals are actively engaged in olfactory discrimination behaviors.
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spelling pubmed-35256552012-12-27 Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice Abraham, Nixon M. Guerin, Delphine Bhaukaurally, Khaleel Carleton, Alan PLoS One Research Article A major challenge in neuroscience is relating neuronal activity to animal behavior. In olfaction limited techniques are available for these correlation studies in freely moving animals. To solve this problem, we developed an olfactory behavioral assay in head-restrained mice where we can monitor behavioral responses with high temporal precision. Mice were trained on a go/no-go operant conditioning paradigm to discriminate simple monomolecular odorants, as well as complex odorants such as binary mixtures of monomolecular odorants or natural odorants. Mice learned to discriminate both simple and complex odors in a few hundred trials with high accuracy. We then compared the discrimination performance of head-restrained mice to the performance observed in freely moving mice. Discrimination accuracies were comparable in both behavioral paradigms. In addition, discrimination times were measured while the animals performed well. In both tasks, mice discriminated simple odors in a few hundred milliseconds and took additional time to discriminate the complex mixtures. In conclusion, mice showed similar and efficient discrimination behavior while head-restrained compared with freely moving mice. Therefore, the head-restrained paradigm offers a relevant approach to monitor neuronal activity while animals are actively engaged in olfactory discrimination behaviors. Public Library of Science 2012-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC3525655/ /pubmed/23272168 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051789 Text en © 2012 Abraham et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Abraham, Nixon M.
Guerin, Delphine
Bhaukaurally, Khaleel
Carleton, Alan
Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice
title Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice
title_full Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice
title_fullStr Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice
title_full_unstemmed Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice
title_short Similar Odor Discrimination Behavior in Head-Restrained and Freely Moving Mice
title_sort similar odor discrimination behavior in head-restrained and freely moving mice
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3525655/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23272168
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0051789
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