Auditory discrimination in a novel spherical treadmill apparatus in head-fixed behaving rats

A. M. M. MIGUELEZ FERNÁNDEZ; A. BURMAN; A. I. MARTÍNEZ CÁCERES; B. S. ZANUTTO; S. E. LEW

Chicago

Congreso; Neuroscience 2015; 2015

fsn

++F.02.c. Appetitive and incentive learning and memoryAuthors:A. M. M. MIGUELEZ FERNÁNDEZ1, A. BURMAN2, A. I. MARTÍNEZ CÁCERES2, *B. S. ZANUTTO3, S. E. LEW2; 1Inst. de Biología y Medicina Exptl. (IBYME-CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina; 2Inst. de Ingeniería Biomédica (IIBM-UBA), Buenos Aires, Argentina; 3Univ. Buenos Aires-CONICET, Buenos Aires, ArgentinaAbstract:While spherical treadmills are widely used in mouse models, there are not many experimental set ups that can be also employed in rats. We introduce a novel training apparatus that allows animals to perform motor responses while being head fixed and can be implemented in lager rodents. The apparatus includes a freely rotating spherical treadmill, an iron structure where animals are head fixed, a fluid delivery system, two video cameras and a software that controls training parameters and performs data storage for posterior analysis. Here we report training two Long Evans rats in an auditory discrimination task. The paradigm employed was of the Go/No-Go type, where walking/not-walking on the treadmill after presentation of an auditory stimulus was rewarded with a drop of water depending on the frequency of the stimulus. Rats showed a favorable response to the training apparatus, handling and procedures and were able to successfully discriminate between a 8KHz and a 1KHz stimulus and execute the correct response.