Department of Philosophy, The University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
Rotman Institute of Philosophy, The University of Western Ontario, Ontario, Canada.
Genes Brain Behav. 2021 Jan;20(1):e12705. doi: 10.1111/gbb.12705. Epub 2020 Nov 10.
Many neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases and other brain disorders are accompanied by impairments in high-level cognitive functions including memory, attention, motivation, and decision-making. Despite several decades of extensive research, neuroscience is little closer to discovering new treatments. Key impediments include the absence of validated and robust cognitive assessment tools for facilitating translation from animal models to humans. In this review, we describe a state-of-the-art platform poised to overcome these impediments and improve the success of translational research, the Mouse Translational Research Accelerator Platform (MouseTRAP), which is centered on the touchscreen cognitive testing system for rodents. It integrates touchscreen-based tests of high-level cognitive assessment with state-of-the art neurotechnology to record and manipulate molecular and circuit level activity in vivo in animal models during human-relevant cognitive performance. The platform also is integrated with two Open Science platforms designed to facilitate knowledge and data-sharing practices within the rodent touchscreen community, touchscreencognition.org and mousebytes.ca. Touchscreencognition.org includes the Wall, showcasing touchscreen news and publications, the Forum, for community discussion, and Training, which includes courses, videos, SOPs, and symposia. To get started, interested researchers simply create user accounts. We describe the origins of the touchscreen testing system, the novel lines of research it has facilitated, and its increasingly widespread use in translational research, which is attributable in part to knowledge-sharing efforts over the past decade. We then identify the unique features of MouseTRAP that stand to potentially revolutionize translational research, and describe new initiatives to partner with similar platforms such as McGill's M3 platform (m3platform.org).
许多神经退行性和神经精神疾病以及其他大脑疾病伴随着高级认知功能的损伤,包括记忆、注意力、动机和决策。尽管经过了几十年的广泛研究,神经科学在发现新的治疗方法方面仍然进展甚微。主要障碍包括缺乏经过验证和可靠的认知评估工具,以促进从动物模型向人类的转化。在这篇综述中,我们描述了一个最先进的平台,该平台有望克服这些障碍,提高转化研究的成功率,即小鼠转化研究加速器平台(MouseTRAP),该平台以用于啮齿动物的触摸屏认知测试系统为中心。它将高级认知评估的基于触摸屏的测试与最先进的神经技术相结合,在动物模型中记录和操纵分子和电路水平的活动,同时进行与人类相关的认知表现。该平台还与两个旨在促进啮齿动物触摸屏社区内知识和数据共享实践的开放科学平台集成,即 touchscreencognition.org 和 mousebytes.ca。touchscreencognition.org 包括展示触摸屏新闻和出版物的 Wall、用于社区讨论的 Forum,以及包括课程、视频、SOP 和研讨会的 Training。要开始使用,感兴趣的研究人员只需创建用户帐户。我们描述了触摸屏测试系统的起源、它促进的新研究线,以及它在转化研究中的日益广泛应用,这部分归因于过去十年的知识共享努力。然后,我们确定了 MouseTRAP 的独特功能,这些功能有可能彻底改变转化研究,并描述了与类似平台(如麦吉尔大学的 M3 平台(m3platform.org))合作的新举措。