Martina Nigri, Giulia Bramati, Adrian C. Steiner, David P. Wolfer
{"title":"智能笼中的食欲动机任务表明,雄性小鼠的空间学习动机成本高于雌性小鼠","authors":"Martina Nigri, Giulia Bramati, Adrian C. Steiner, David P. Wolfer","doi":"10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1270159","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The IntelliCage (IC) permits the assessment of the behavior and learning abilities of mice in a social home cage context. To overcome water deprivation as an aversive driver of learning, we developed protocols in which spatial learning is motivated appetitively by the preference of mice for sweetened over plain water. While plain water is available at all times, only correct task responses give access to sweetened water rewards. Under these conditions, C57BL/6J mice successfully mastered a corner preference task with the reversal and also learned a more difficult time-place task with reversal. However, the rate of responding to sweetened water decreased strongly with increasing task difficulty, indicating that learning challenges and reduced success in obtaining rewards decreased the motivation of the animals to seek sweetened water. While C57BL/6J mice of both sexes showed similar initial taste preferences and learned similarly well in simple learning tasks, the rate of responding to sweetened water and performance dropped more rapidly in male than in female mice in response to increasing learning challenges. Taken together, our data indicate that male mice can have a disadvantage relative to females in mastering difficult, appetitively motivated learning tasks, likely due to sex differences in value-based decision-making.","PeriodicalId":12368,"journal":{"name":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.6000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Appetitively motivated tasks in the IntelliCage reveal a higher motivational cost of spatial learning in male than female mice\",\"authors\":\"Martina Nigri, Giulia Bramati, Adrian C. Steiner, David P. Wolfer\",\"doi\":\"10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1270159\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"The IntelliCage (IC) permits the assessment of the behavior and learning abilities of mice in a social home cage context. To overcome water deprivation as an aversive driver of learning, we developed protocols in which spatial learning is motivated appetitively by the preference of mice for sweetened over plain water. While plain water is available at all times, only correct task responses give access to sweetened water rewards. Under these conditions, C57BL/6J mice successfully mastered a corner preference task with the reversal and also learned a more difficult time-place task with reversal. However, the rate of responding to sweetened water decreased strongly with increasing task difficulty, indicating that learning challenges and reduced success in obtaining rewards decreased the motivation of the animals to seek sweetened water. While C57BL/6J mice of both sexes showed similar initial taste preferences and learned similarly well in simple learning tasks, the rate of responding to sweetened water and performance dropped more rapidly in male than in female mice in response to increasing learning challenges. Taken together, our data indicate that male mice can have a disadvantage relative to females in mastering difficult, appetitively motivated learning tasks, likely due to sex differences in value-based decision-making.\",\"PeriodicalId\":12368,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience\",\"volume\":\"10 1\",\"pages\":\"\"},\"PeriodicalIF\":2.6000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-02-29\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"3\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1270159\",\"RegionNum\":3,\"RegionCategory\":\"医学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q2\",\"JCRName\":\"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1270159","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
Appetitively motivated tasks in the IntelliCage reveal a higher motivational cost of spatial learning in male than female mice
The IntelliCage (IC) permits the assessment of the behavior and learning abilities of mice in a social home cage context. To overcome water deprivation as an aversive driver of learning, we developed protocols in which spatial learning is motivated appetitively by the preference of mice for sweetened over plain water. While plain water is available at all times, only correct task responses give access to sweetened water rewards. Under these conditions, C57BL/6J mice successfully mastered a corner preference task with the reversal and also learned a more difficult time-place task with reversal. However, the rate of responding to sweetened water decreased strongly with increasing task difficulty, indicating that learning challenges and reduced success in obtaining rewards decreased the motivation of the animals to seek sweetened water. While C57BL/6J mice of both sexes showed similar initial taste preferences and learned similarly well in simple learning tasks, the rate of responding to sweetened water and performance dropped more rapidly in male than in female mice in response to increasing learning challenges. Taken together, our data indicate that male mice can have a disadvantage relative to females in mastering difficult, appetitively motivated learning tasks, likely due to sex differences in value-based decision-making.
期刊介绍:
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience is a leading journal in its field, publishing rigorously peer-reviewed research that advances our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying behavior. Field Chief Editor Nuno Sousa at the Instituto de Pesquisa em Ciências da Vida e da Saúde (ICVS) is supported by an outstanding Editorial Board of international experts. This multidisciplinary open-access journal is at the forefront of disseminating and communicating scientific knowledge and impactful discoveries to researchers, academics, clinicians and the public worldwide.
This journal publishes major insights into the neural mechanisms of animal and human behavior, and welcomes articles studying the interplay between behavior and its neurobiological basis at all levels: from molecular biology and genetics, to morphological, biochemical, neurochemical, electrophysiological, neuroendocrine, pharmacological, and neuroimaging studies.