Kornum Birgitte Rahbek, Thygesen Kristin Sjølie, Nielsen Thomas Rune, Knudsen Gitte Moos, Lind Nanna Marie
Neurobiology Research Unit and Center for Integrated Molecular Brain Imaging, N9201 Copenhagen University Hospital, Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen E, Denmark.
Behav Brain Res. 2007 Aug 6;181(2):210-7. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2007.04.007. Epub 2007 Apr 20.
In the neuroscience community interest for using the pig is growing. Several disease models have been developed creating a need for validation of behavioural paradigms in these animals. Here, we report the effect of different inter-phase delay intervals on the performance of Göttingen minipigs in the spontaneous object recognition test. The test consisted of a sample and a test phase. First, the pigs explored two similar objects. After a 10-min, 1-h, or 24-h delay two different objects were presented; one familiar from the sample phase and one novel. An exploration-time difference between the novel and the familiar object was interpreted as recognition of the familiar object. We scored the exploration times both manually and automatically, and compared the methods. A strong discrimination between novel and familiar objects after a 10-min inter-phase delay interval and no discrimination after 24h were found in our set-up of the spontaneous object recognition test. After a 1-h delay, the pigs still showed a significant habituation to the familiar object, but no discrimination was observed. Discrimination between the two objects was mainly confined to the first half of the test phase, and we observed a high between-subject variation. Furthermore, automatic tracking was valid for determination of habituation and discrimination parameters but lead to an overestimation of individual measurements. We conclude that the spontaneous object recognition test for pigs is sensitive to increasing inter-phase delay intervals, and that automatic data acquisition can be applied.
在神经科学界，使用猪的兴趣正在增加。已经开发了几种疾病模型，这就需要对这些动物的行为范式进行验证。在此，我们报告了不同相间延迟间隔对哥廷根小型猪在自发物体识别测试中表现的影响。该测试包括一个样本阶段和一个测试阶段。首先，猪探索两个相似的物体。在10分钟、1小时或24小时的延迟后，呈现两个不同的物体；一个是样本阶段熟悉的，一个是新的。新物体和熟悉物体之间的探索时间差异被解释为对熟悉物体的识别。我们手动和自动记录探索时间，并比较了这两种方法。在我们的自发物体识别测试设置中，发现相间延迟间隔为10分钟后，新物体和熟悉物体之间有明显的区分，而24小时后没有区分。延迟1小时后，猪对熟悉物体仍表现出显著的习惯化，但未观察到区分。两个物体之间的区分主要局限于测试阶段的前半部分，并且我们观察到个体间差异很大。此外，自动跟踪对于确定习惯化和区分参数是有效的，但会导致个体测量值的高估。我们得出结论，猪的自发物体识别测试对增加的相间延迟间隔敏感，并且可以应用自动数据采集。
