Neuropsychopharmacological methods

Question 1

Why do we need to measure the behaviour of a whole organism?

Answer 1

End result: to find treatments and cures for diseases of the cns.

need to be tested on whole organism in order to check for therapeutic value and unwanted side effects

Question 2

Name the 9 types of behaviour we are interested in measuring?

Answer 2

1. Fear
2. Anxiety
3. Attention
4. Depression
5. Locomotor activity
6. Locomotor coordination
7. Learning
8. Memory
9. Sensory perception

Question 3

Clinical relevance of fear testing?

Answer 3

Post-traumatic stress disorder

Phobias

Question 4

Clinical relevance of anxiety testing?

Answer 4

A product of most of the other conditions

Question 5

Clinical relevance of attention testing?

Answer 5

Schixophrenia

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Question 6

Clinical relevance of depression testing?

Answer 6

Bipolar disorder

Question 7

Clinical relevance of Locomotor activity testing?

Answer 7

Parkinson’s disease

Question 8

Clinical relevance of locomotor coordination testing?

Answer 8

Huntington’s chorea

Question 9

Clinical relevance of learning testing?

Answer 9

Autistic spectrum disorders

Question 10

Clinical relevance of memory testing?

Answer 10

Alzheimer’s disease

Question 11

Clinical relevance of sensory perception testing\?

Answer 11

Pain sensitivity in parkinson’s disease

Chronic pain

Question 12

How do we test for fear?

Answer 12

Cued or contextual fear conditioning

Question 13

How do we test for anxiety?

Answer 13

Elevated plus maze

Light/dark maze

Question 14

How do we test for attention?

Answer 14

Attentional set-shifting task

Question 15

How do we test for depression?

Answer 15

Learned helplessness

Question 16

How do we test for locomotor activity?

Answer 16

Activity box

Question 17

How do we test for locomotor coordination?

Answer 17

Rotarod

Skilled reaching

Balance beam

Question 18

How do we test for learning?

Answer 18

Morris water maze

Radial arm maze

Paired associate learning

Question 19

How do we test for memory?

Answer 19

Spontaneous alternation

Novel object recognition

Question 20

How do we test for sensory perception?

Answer 20

Von Frey test

Temperature sensitivity

Question 21

Fear?

Answer 21

Cued: make a sound and a shock is given. Make the sound again they freeze in fear (even if shock isnt given).

Cotentual: animal only given shock in specific environment. Tell if it generalises being put in a box with the shock or just the box with the texture

Question 22

Anxiety?

Answer 22

4 corridors: 2 enclosed and 2 light.

Normal rats want to be in the enclosed corridors. After a while, will inspect the light corridors.

Anxiety rats will spend more time in the enclosed corridors.

Question 23

Attention?

Answer 23

Can do it with cards on humans or on food bowls for rodents.

On cards: get the person to sort the cards by colour, number and shape. Change the rule during it and see how long it takes for them to adapt.

On food bowls: change the texture, stuff inside and colour of the bowl.

Question 24

Depression?

Answer 24

Forced swim test: Put the animal in a beaker of water (not to stress the animal out)- so the animal cant climb out.

Will try and swim but eventually helplessness sets in and will just float there (not trying to get out or swim)

Tail suspension test: hold rat by their tail: they will try and climb up their own body to get the right way up. Will just dangle there if helplessness.

Question 25

Locomotor activity

Answer 25

A box with lots of laser beams so you can measure the rats movement. Can measure how fast the rat is moving, when is it moving, how much time does it spend rearing and the distane it travels. It a passive experiement: does not force the rat to do it.

Question 26

Locomotor coordination?

Answer 26

**rotarod**: Tests muscle strength and coordination. Rotating tube- the rodant must move in order to stay up- can increase speed. **Reaching test:** has to reach through a small gap to collect food. If they are hungry beforehand, can measure how much food they collect in a period of time. **Balace beam:** Slops upwards: motivation to try and persuaded the rat to walk up. Balance beam. Beam get narrower to the top. Can monitor how often its feet slips off the side.

Question 27

Learning?

Answer 27

**Morris water maze**: navigation: hidden platform below water line. First try: the rat goes all over the place trying to find it and eventually randomly knocks into it. Next time will go back to that the same position. If you change the position of the platform- how long does it spend at the old location. **Radial arm maze**: 8 arms. Rodents are foraging animals therefore wont go to the same arm twice. Add food to all 8 and see if the rodent will go back to the same arm at all. **Paired associate learning:** pair food flavours with location. Give it a piece of food and then open one arm with that food in it. Do it again with other food flavours and different arms. Eventually go back to the first flavour but will all arms open. See if it goes back to the right arm

Question 28

Memory?

Answer 28

Rodents will spend more time at the novel object. if it spends the same amount of time at each- can say it doesnt remember seeing the last object. If it can associate seeing the object in a particular texture room

Question 29

Sensory perception?

Answer 29

**Von Frey test:** set of little filaments each bend at different pressures. Apply to the feet of mouse- eventually at a particular pressure the animal will move it foot. Chronic pain sufferers will move their foot at a lower pressure. **Temperature sensitvity:** can identify the temperatre the animals gets to before it starts moving and licking its paws to cool down.

Question 30

Name the 3 ways to measure at the cellular level?

Answer 30

**Extracellular and intracellular electrophysiology:** implant electrodes into the animal brain. **Microdialysis**: making a rat rn on a ball with a virtual screen around it can make a mindow with a glass pipette to see the neurone activity. **Optogenetics:** se lights to activate specific neurones in the brain.