week 2 - behavioral studies with animals Flashcards
Are humans more genetically similar to rodents or cats and dogs?
Humans are more similar to rodents than cats and dogs
Why are rodents developmentally useful as a model?
They have a quick developmental timescale. They get through childhood, puberty and reach adulthood within 8-10 weeks
What is the immemorial association hypothesis?
Hypothesis of why were genetically and behaviorally similar to rodents
Rodents have been associated with us for a very long time
They are commensal organisms because they benefit from living with us - we share the same food
This means they were with us since we transitioned from nomadic hunters into farmers
This means that over hundreds of years we have likely had the same environmental influences on man and mouse
what are some environmental influences that we don’t share with rodents
The social environment
They don’t live in a society so this is something we can never properly translate
Psychosocial disorders are hard to model with rodents
Behavior definition
Observed animal activity
Activity refers to voluntary or involuntary movements made by conscious, unrestrained animals
Brief history of studying behavior
19th Century - Darwin ‘origin of species’ theory of evolution
20th century - Behaviorism, Skinner and pavlov everything can be explained by conditioning
20th century - ethology, looking at innate behaviors of animals in their natural environment
What is anthropomorphism?
Anthropomorphism - projecting human qualities onto animals or inanimate objects
How can you measure exploration in rodents?
You can measure the innate attraction of rodents to novel objects
Tasks:
-novel object exploration
-holeboard (they stick heads in holes)
- Puzzle box (give them little puzzles to solve to get into their cosy dark enclosed area that they prefer)
What types of cognition can you measure in rodents?
What tasks would you use?
- Spatial and non spatial learning
- Working memory
- Reference and recognition memory
-Attention
Tasks:
- Morris water maze (time taken to find hidden platform)
- 8 arm radial maze
- Social recognition task
- Novel object discrimination
- Two-retractable lever operant chamber (skinner box)
- 5-choice serial reaction time task
What social behaviors can you measure in rodents?
What tasks would you use:
Social play behaviour
Social approach
Social hierachy
Aggression
tasks:
- social dominance test
- Social interaction test (males you have to be careful they don’t fight)
- Three chamber social approach task
What communication can you measure in rodents
Olfactory communication
Ultrasonic vocalisation
Sonograms
describe fear vs. anxiety in rodents:
Fear = response to actual threat
Anxiety = response to a potential threat
In fear, rodents may move away from threat
For anxiety, rodents may approach a threat, to investigate it
How can you measure anxiety in rodents:
- Open field area (measure how much they avoid being in the open area)
- Light/dark box (measure how much they spend in the light
- Conditioning tasks - condition them to associate a stimulus with fear. See how quickly they become conditioned to this response, and how much they learn
How can you measure depression in rodents?
Focussed on helplesness/behavioural despair (giving up on struggling):
Porsolt swim test - Measure how long it takes before the mouse stops swimming#
Tail suspension test - Measure how long the animal keeps wriggling when suspended from tail
These tests are very sensitive to anti-depressants
How would you measure sensorimotor gating in rodents:
Accoustic startle response and pre-pulse inhibition
After your exposed to a stimulus a lot you startle less
Rodents jump off a pressure sensitive grid when startled
