Institut de l'Audition, Institut Pasteur, Université de Paris, INSERM, 75012 Paris, France.
Institut Pasteur, Université Paris Cité, DT, Animalerie Centrale, 75724 Paris, France.
Cell Rep Methods. 2022 Dec 2;2(12):100355. doi: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2022.100355. eCollection 2022 Dec 19.
Perceptual decision-making tasks are essential to many fields of neuroscience. Current protocols generally reward deprived animals with water. However, balancing animals' deprivation level with their well-being is challenging, and trial number is limited by satiation. Here, we present electrical stimulation of the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) as an alternative that avoids deprivation while yielding stable motivation for thousands of trials. Using licking or lever press as a report, MFB animals learnt auditory discrimination tasks at similar speed to water-deprived mice. Moreover, they more reliably reached higher accuracy in harder tasks, performing up to 4,500 trials per session without loss of motivation. MFB stimulation did not impact the underlying sensory behavior since psychometric parameters and response times are preserved. MFB mice lacked signs of metabolic or behavioral stress compared with water-deprived mice. Overall, MFB stimulation is a highly promising tool for task learning because it enhances task performance while avoiding deprivation.
感知决策任务是许多神经科学领域的基础。目前的方案通常用水分来奖励被剥夺的动物。然而，平衡动物的剥夺水平和它们的幸福感是具有挑战性的，并且试验次数受到饱腹感的限制。在这里，我们提出内侧前脑束（MFB）的电刺激作为一种替代方案，它可以避免剥夺，同时产生数千次试验的稳定动机。使用舔舐或压杆作为报告，MFB 动物以类似于水剥夺小鼠的速度学习听觉辨别任务。此外，它们在更难的任务中更可靠地达到更高的准确性，每次会议可进行多达 4500 次试验而不会失去动力。MFB 刺激不会影响潜在的感觉行为，因为心理测量参数和反应时间是保留的。与水剥夺的老鼠相比，MFB 刺激的老鼠没有表现出代谢或行为压力的迹象。总的来说，MFB 刺激是一种非常有前途的任务学习工具，因为它可以提高任务表现，同时避免剥夺。
