Editor
Edgar Soria-Gomez
  • IKERBASQUE researcher, Faculty of Medicine and Nursery, University of the Basque Country
Research fields
  • Neuroscience
Visual-looming Shadow Task with in-vivo Calcium Activity Monitoring to Assess Defensive Behaviors in Mice
There has been a clear movement in recent years towards the adoption of more naturalistic experimental regimes for the study of behavior and its underlying neural architecture. Here we provide a protocol that allows experimenters working with mice, to mimic a looming and advancing predatory threat from the sky. This approach is easy to implement and can be combined with sophisticated neural recordings that allow access to real-time activity during behavior. This approach offers another option in a battery of tests that allow for a more comprehensive understanding of defensive behaviors.
Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein 35-55 (MOG 35-55)-induced Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis: A Model of Chronic Multiple Sclerosis
Authors:  Sakie Miyamura, Nagisa Matsuo, Kazuki Nagayasu, Hisashi Shirakawa and Shuji Kaneko, date: 12/20/2019, view: 6753, Q&A: 0
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is the common demyelinating disease of human central nervous system. Among mouse models available to study MS, including the cuprizone application and lysolecithin-injection models, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) model is widely used so that chronic EAE model of C57BL/6J can reflect the autoimmune pathogenesis of MS well. Here we introduce the EAE model based on C57BL/6J mice, which is generated by injection of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein 35-55 (MOG 35-55) as an antigen. After immunization with complete Freund's adjuvant, clinical signs and changes in body weight are observed one or two weeks later. The EAE model will continue to be useful for development of therapeutics for MS.
Rat Model of Empathy for Pain
Authors:  Yang Yu, Chun-Li Li, Rui Du and Jun Chen, date: 06/20/2019, view: 5460, Q&A: 0
Empathy for pain is referred to as an evolutionary behavior of social animals and humans associated with the ability to feel, recognize, understand and share the other's distressing (pain, social rejection and catastrophe) states. Impairment of empathy can definitely lead to deficits in social communication and sociability (attachment, bond, reciprocity, altruism and morality) that may be fundamental to some psychiatric disorders such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), psychopathy, misconduct, antisocial personality disorder and schizophrenia. So far, the underlying mechanisms of empathy are poorly known due to lack of animal models and scarce understanding of its biological basis. Recently, we have successfully identified and validated the behavioral identities of empathy for pain in rats that can be widely used as a rodent model for studying the underlying biological mechanisms of empathy. Priming dyadic social interaction between a naive cagemate observer (CO) and a cagemate demonstrator (CD), rather than a non-cagemate, in pain for 30 min in a testing box can repeatedly and constantly result in empathic responses of the CO toward the familiar CD's distressing condition, displaying as allo-licking at the injury site, allo-grooming at the body and social transfer of pain. The familiarity-based, distress-specific social consolation and subsequent social transfer of pain can be qualitatively and quantitatively rated as experimental biomarkers for empathy for pain. The rodent model of empathy for pain is state-of-the-art and has more advantages than the existing ones used for social neuroscience since it can reflect sensory, emotional and cognitive processes of the brain in running the prosocial and altruistic behaviors in animals who could not report verbally. Here we would like to provide and share the protocol of the model for wide use.
Labeling Aversive Memory Trace in Mouse Using a Doxycycline-inducible Expression System
Authors:  Erin E. Koffman and Jianyang Du, date: 10/20/2017, view: 9834, Q&A: 0
A memory trace, also known as a memory engram, is theorized to be a mechanism for physical memory storage in the brain (Silva et al., 2009; Josselyn, 2010) and memory trace is associated with a specific population of neurons (Liu et al., 2012; Ramirez et al., 2013). Labeling and stimulating those neurons will activate the memory trace (Liu et al., 2012; Ramirez et al., 2013). Memory appears to be spread over different regions of the brain rather than being localized to one area. Therefore, the methods used to trace memory have the ability to improve our understanding of neuronal circuits. In this protocol, we introduce a doxycycline-inducible expression system to label the specific neurons associated with the original memory trace.
The Object Context-place-location Paradigm for Testing Spatial Memory in Mice
This protocol was originally designed to examine long-term spatial memory in PKMζ knockout (i.e., PKMζ-null) mice (Tsokas et al., 2016). Our main goal was to test whether the ability of these animals to maintain previously acquired spatial information was sensitive to the type and complexity of the spatial information that needs to be remembered. Accordingly, we modified and combined into a single protocol, three novelty-preference tests, specifically the object-in-context, object-in-place and object-in-location tests, adapted from previous studies in rodents (Mumby et al., 2002; Langston and Wood, 2010; Barker and Warburton, 2011). During the training (learning) phase of the procedure, mice are repeatedly exposed to three different environments in which they learn the spatial arrangement of an environment-specific set of non-identical objects. After this learning phase is completed, each mouse receives three different memory tests configured as environment mismatches, in which the previously learned objects-in-space configurations have been modified from the original training situation. The mismatch tests differ in their cognitive demands due to the type of spatial association that is manipulated, specifically evaluating memory for object-context and object-place associations. During each memory test, the time differential spent exploring the novel (misplaced) and familiar objects is computed as an index of novelty discrimination. This index is the behavioral measure of memory recall of the previously acquired spatial associations.
Olfactory Habituation-dishabituation Test (Mouse)
Authors:  Hiroo Takahashi and Akio Tsuboi, date: 03/05/2017, view: 9507, Q&A: 0
Olfaction plays a fundamental role in the various behaviors such as feeding, mating, nursing, and avoidance in mice. Behavioral tests that characterize abilities of odor detection and recognition using genetically modified mice reveal the contribution of target genes to the olfactory processing. Here, we describe the olfactory habituation-dishabituation test for investigating the odor detection threshold in mice.
Object-context Recognition Memory Test for Mice
Authors:  Sofia Kanatsou and Harm Krugers, date: 09/05/2016, view: 9639, Q&A: 0
The object in-context (OIC) task is a variant of the widely used object recognition (OR) task (Dix and Aggleton, 1999). The OIC task makes use of the fact that rodents have a natural tendency to explore novel environments and objects. The hippocampus appears to play a major role in the OIC task (much more so than in the original OR task), where animals should be able to distinguish between two familiar objects of which one is in a different context from the training trial (Ennaceur and Aggleton,1997; Bermudez-Rattoni et al., 2005; Albasser et al., 2009; Roozendaal et al., 2010; Banks et al., 2014; Bermudez-Rattoni, 2014). Recognition memory encompasses a number of additional components, such as an item's associations with its context, place, etc. (Bussey et al., 1999, 2000). Here, we describe a version of the OIC task in mice, based on earlier reports (Dix and Aggleton, 1999; Eacott and Norman, 2004; Balderas et al., 2008; Barsegyan et al., 2014; Kanatsou et al., 2015a; Kanatsou et al., 2015b).
Biotinylation and Purification of Plasma Membrane-associated Proteins from Rodent Cultured Neurons
Authors:  Margarida Caldeira, Joana S. Ferreira, Ana Luísa Carvalho and Carlos B. Duarte, date: 05/20/2016, view: 9810, Q&A: 0
This protocol aims at the biotin labeling and affinity purification of plasma membrane proteins from cultured neurons. Protein biotinylation consists in the covalent attachment of biotin to proteins. Biotin is a membrane unpermeable molecule with a small size (MW 244.31 g/mol) and therefore does not interfere with the normal function of proteins. Biotin binds to streptavidin and avidin molecules with high affinity. This binding is extremely resistant to temperature, pH and proteolysis, which allows capture and purification of plasma membrane proteins. Moreover, proteins can bind several biotin molecules, that will allow the consequent binding of several streptavidin or avidin molecules, increasing the sensitivity of detection of the proteins of interest. In this protocol proteins at the cell surface of live cultured neurons are biotinylated. Neuronal extracts are prepared and biotinylated proteins are collected with NeutrAvidin-coupled beads, and analyzed by Western blotting.
A Novel Task for Studying Memory of Occasional Events in Rats
Episodic memory has been defined in humans as the conscious recollection of unique personal past experiences often occurring singly during daily life, including remembrance of what happened, where and when it happened (Tulving, 1972). Here, we propose and describe in details a novel protocol we recently used to test the ability of rats to form and recollect episodic-like memory of previously encountered occasional episodes (Veyrac et al., 2015). During these episodes, the animals are briefly exposed to sets of specific odor–drink associations (what happened) encountered in specific locations (where it happened) within different multisensory enriched environments (in which context/occasion it happened). Memory of the episodes can be tested at relatively short (24 h) or much longer (24 d) delays in either a low or high interfering retrieval situation. This novel paradigm brought evidence for individual memory profiles of recall performance that might be correlated to different aspects of brain functional networks. More generally, it offers novel possibilities to explore cellular and network mechanisms that underlie memory of past events and memory dysfunction in brain pathologies.
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