Lendület Laboratory of Systems Neuroscience, Institute of Experimental Medicine, Budapest, Hungary.
Sanworks LLC, Rochester, NY, USA.
Sci Rep. 2020 Dec 21;10(1):22362. doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-79290-2.
Experiments aiming to understand sensory-motor systems, cognition and behavior necessitate training animals to perform complex tasks. Traditional training protocols require lab personnel to move the animals between home cages and training chambers, to start and end training sessions, and in some cases, to hand-control each training trial. Human labor not only limits the amount of training per day, but also introduces several sources of variability and may increase animal stress. Here we present an automated training system for the 5-choice serial reaction time task (5CSRTT), a classic rodent task often used to test sensory detection, sustained attention and impulsivity. We found that full automation without human intervention allowed rapid, cost-efficient training, and decreased stress as measured by corticosterone levels. Training breaks introduced only a transient drop in performance, and mice readily generalized across training systems when transferred from automated to manual protocols. We further validated our automated training system with wireless optogenetics and pharmacology experiments, expanding the breadth of experimental needs our system may fulfill. Our automated 5CSRTT system can serve as a prototype for fully automated behavioral training, with methods and principles transferrable to a range of rodent tasks.
实验旨在理解感觉运动系统、认知和行为，这需要训练动物来执行复杂的任务。传统的训练方案要求实验室人员在动物的家笼和训练室之间移动，以启动和结束训练课程，在某些情况下，还需要手动控制每个训练试验。人工劳动不仅限制了每天的训练量，而且还引入了几个可变因素，并可能增加动物的压力。在这里，我们展示了一种用于 5 选择连续反应时间任务（5CSRTT）的自动化训练系统，这是一种常用于测试感觉检测、持续注意力和冲动性的经典啮齿动物任务。我们发现，无需人工干预的完全自动化可以实现快速、高效的训练，并降低皮质酮水平所衡量的压力。训练中断只会导致性能暂时下降，当从自动化协议转移到手动协议时，老鼠很容易在训练系统之间进行概括。我们还通过无线光遗传学和药理学实验验证了我们的自动化训练系统，扩展了我们的系统可能满足的实验需求范围。我们的自动化 5CSRTT 系统可以作为全自动行为训练的原型，其方法和原则可转移到一系列啮齿动物任务中。
