RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Automated Behavioral Experiments in Mice Reveal Periodic Cycles of Task Engagement within Circadian Rhythms
JF eneuro
JO eNeuro
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP ENEURO.0121-19.2019
DO 10.1523/ENEURO.0121-19.2019
VO 6
IS 5
A1 Francis, Nikolas A.
A1 Bohlke, Kayla
A1 Kanold, Patrick O.
YR 2019
UL http://www.eneuro.org/content/6/5/ENEURO.0121-19.2019.abstract
AB High-throughput automated experiments accelerate discovery in neuroscience research and reduce bias. To enable high-throughput behavioral experiments, we developed a user-friendly and scalable automated system that can simultaneously train hundreds of mice on behavioral tasks, with time-stamped behavioral information recorded continuously for weeks. We trained 12 cages of C57BL/6J mice (24 mice, 2 mice/cage) to perform auditory behavioral tasks. We found that circadian rhythms modulated overall behavioral activity as expected for nocturnal animals. However, auditory detection and discrimination accuracy remained consistently high in both light and dark cycles. We also found a periodic modulation of behavioral response rates only during the discrimination task, suggesting that the mice periodically reduce task engagement (i.e., take “breaks”) when task difficulty increases due to the more complex stimulus–response paradigm for discrimination versus detection. Our results highlight how automated systems for continuous high-throughput behavioral experiments enable both efficient data collection and new observations on animal behavior.