Behavioral & Cognitive Testing

Social group during housing and testing modulates the effect of ethanol on zebrafish (Danio rerio) behavior

Zebrafish (Danio rerio) are a popular model organism in behavioral pharmacology research due to many genetic and neurological similarities with humans. As a social species, the presence (or absence) of conspecifics during housing and testing is likely to affect behavior,...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Fish, Zebrafish

Citation: Alef, R., Blaser, R. E. 2023. Social group during housing and testing modulates the effect of ethanol on zebrafish (Danio rerio) behavior. Behavioural Processes 209, 104877.

Are mirrors aversive or rewarding for mice? Insights from the mirror preference test

Research investigating the effects of mirror exposure in mice found that the presence of mirrors has similar effects to the presence of cage mates. Restraint in a small holder induces hyperthermia (stress-induce hyperthermia: SIH) in mice but a restrained mouse...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, Environmental EnrichmentAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Watanabe, S. 2023. Are mirrors aversive or rewarding for mice? Insights from the mirror preference test. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1137206.

The power of a touch: Regular touchscreen training but not its termination affects hormones and behavior in mice

Touchscreen-based procedures are increasingly used in experimental animal research. They not only represent a promising approach for translational research, but have also been highlighted as a powerful tool to reduce potential experimenter effects in animal studies. However, to prepare the...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Animal Training, Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, Environmental EnrichmentAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Quante, S. M., Siewert, V., Palme, R. et al. 2023. The power of a touch: Regular touchscreen training but not its termination affects hormones and behavior in mice. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1112780.

Clicker training mice for improved compliance in the catwalk test

The CatWalk test relies on the run of mice across the platform to measure a constant speed with low variation. Mice usually require a stimulus to walk to the end of the catwalk. However, such stimuli are usually aversive and...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Animal Training, Behavioral & Cognitive TestingAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Dickmann, J., Gonzalez-Uarquin, F., Reichel, S. et al. 2022. Clicker training mice for improved compliance in the catwalk test. Animals 12(24), 3545.

Designing animal-friendly behavioral tests for neuroscience research: The importance of an ethological approach

Behavioral tests have three key elements: (1) a motivating factor (what motivates the animal in the test); (2) an observable behavior (which behaviors we may expect the animal exhibits in response to the test); (3) a measurable outcome (a quantifiable...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive TestingAnimal Type: All/General

Citation: d'Isa, R., Gerlai, R. 2023. Designing animal-friendly behavioral tests for neuroscience research: The importance of an ethological approach. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1090248.

Social housing status impacts rhesus monkeys’ affective responding in classic threat processing tasks

Individuals' social contexts are broadly recognized to impact both their psychology and neurobiology. These effects are observed in people and in nonhuman animals who are the subjects for comparative and translational science. The social contexts in which monkeys are reared...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, Social Housing & CompanionshipAnimal Type: Macaque, Nonhuman Primate

Citation: Charbonneau, J. A., Amaral, D. G. Bliss-Moreau, E. 2022. Social housing status impacts rhesus monkeys' affective responding in classic threat processing tasks. Scientific Reports 12(1), 4140.

Longitudinal home-cage automated assessment of climbing behavior shows sexual dimorphism and aging-related decrease in C57BL/6J healthy mice and allows early detection of motor impairment in the N171-82Q mouse model of Huntington’s disease

Monitoring the activity of mice within their home cage is proving to be a powerful tool for revealing subtle and early-onset phenotypes in mouse models. Video-tracking, in particular, lends itself to automated machine-learning technologies that have the potential to improve...

Year Published: 2023Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, Disease/Experimental Model, HandlingAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Bains, R. S., Forrest, H., Sillito, R. R. et al. 2023. Longitudinal home-cage automated assessment of climbing behavior shows sexual dimorphism and aging-related decrease in C57BL/6J healthy mice and allows early detection of motor impairment in the N171-82Q mouse model of Huntington's disease. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 17, 1148172.

Refinements to rodent head fixation and fluid/food control for neuroscience

The use of head fixation in mice is increasingly common in research, its use having initially been restricted to the field of sensory neuroscience. Head restraint has often been combined with fluid control, rather than food restriction, to motivate behaviour,...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, RestraintAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Barkus, C., Bergmann, C., Branco, T. et al. 2022. Refinements to rodent head fixation and fluid/food control for neuroscience. Journal of Neuroscience Methods 381, 109705.

A naturalistic environment to study visual cognition in unrestrained monkeys

Macaque monkeys are widely used to study vision. In the traditional approach, monkeys are brought into a lab to perform visual tasks while they are restrained to obtain stable eye tracking and neural recordings. Here, we describe a novel environment...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive Testing, RestraintAnimal Type: Macaque, Nonhuman Primate

Citation: Jacob, G., Katti, H., Cherian, T. et al. 2021. A naturalistic environment to study visual cognition in unrestrained monkeys. eLife 10, e63816.

Assessing spatial learning and memory in mice: Classic radial maze versus a new animal-friendly automated radial maze allowing free access and not requiring food deprivation

The radial arm maze (RAM) is a common behavioral test to quantify spatial learning and memory in rodents. Prior attempts to refine the standard experimental setup have been insufficient. Previously, we demonstrated the feasibility of a fully automated, voluntary, and...

Year Published: 2022Topics: Behavioral & Cognitive TestingAnimal Type: Mouse, Rodent

Citation: Kohler, J., Mei, J., Banneke, S. et al. 2022. Assessing spatial learning and memory in mice: Classic radial maze versus a new animal-friendly automated radial maze allowing free access and not requiring food deprivation. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience 16, 1013624.