Sivroni Shir, Sloin Hadas E, Stark Eran
Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel-Aviv 6997801, Israel.
Department of Mathematics, Afeka-Tel Aviv College of Engineering, Tel-Aviv 6910717, Israel.
iScience. 2023 Sep 7;26(10):107847. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.107847. eCollection 2023 Oct 20.
Priming, a change in the mental processing of a stimulus as a result of prior encounter with a related stimulus, has been observed repeatedly and studied extensively in humans. Yet currently, there is no behavioral model of short-term priming in lab animals, precluding research on the neurobiological basis of priming. Here, we describe an auditory discrimination paradigm for studying response priming in freely moving mice. We find a priming effect in success rate in all mice tested on the task. In contrast, we do not find a priming effect in response times. Compared to non-primed discrimination trials, the addition of incongruent prime stimuli reduces success rate more than congruent prime stimuli, suggesting a cognitive mechanism based on differential interference. The results establish the short-term priming phenomenon in rodents, and the paradigm opens the door to studying the cellular-network basis of priming.
启动效应是指由于先前接触过相关刺激而导致对刺激的心理加工发生变化，这一现象已在人类身上得到反复观察和广泛研究。然而目前，实验室动物中尚无短期启动效应的行为模型，这使得对启动效应神经生物学基础的研究受到阻碍。在此，我们描述了一种用于研究自由活动小鼠反应启动效应的听觉辨别范式。我们发现，在该任务中接受测试的所有小鼠的成功率上均存在启动效应。相比之下，我们在反应时间上未发现启动效应。与未启动的辨别试验相比，添加不一致的启动刺激比一致的启动刺激更能降低成功率，这表明存在一种基于差异干扰的认知机制。这些结果证实了啮齿动物中存在短期启动效应现象，并且该范式为研究启动效应的细胞网络基础打开了大门。
