TY - JOUR
T1 - Slow angled-descent forepaw grasping (SLAG)
T2 - An innate behavioral task for identification of individual experimental mice possessing functional vision
AU - Gil-Pagés, Macarena
AU - Stiles, Robert J.
AU - Parks, Christopher A.
AU - Neier, Steven C.
AU - Radulovic, Maja
AU - Oliveros, Alfredo
AU - Ferrer, Alejandro
AU - Reed, Brendan K.
AU - Wilton, Katelynn M.
AU - Schrum, Adam G.
N1 - Funding Information:
Antonio Gil-Pagés composed and edited Additional file 1. Doo-Sup Choi, Diana Gil, and Carlos Molina-Mendiola provided helpful discussion. Chella David, Mark McNiven and Larry Pease provided mouse and facility support, and Theresa Riley assisted with animal care and welfare. Mutant CD3 breeder mice were kindly provided by Dietmar Kappes (CD3δ knockout, Fox-Chase Cancer Center), and Dario and Kate Vignali (CD3εζ double knockout, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; with permission from Cox Terhorst, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center). For facilitating this international collaboration, we thank Dr. Julia Sebastian Herranz (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid), Darra Klein and Alex Baptiste (American Council on International Personnel), and Angela Pross, Chris Wendt, and Mark Zobitz (Mayo Clinic). This work was funded by Mayo Foundation, Mayo Clinic.
Funding Information:
1Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de Salud, Programa de Licenciatura de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. 2Undergraduate Research Employment Program (UREP), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. 3Initiative to Maximize Student Diversity (IMSD), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. 4Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. 5PhD program, Mayo Graduate School (MGS), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. 6MD/PhD program, Mayo Medical School (MMS), Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA. 7College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, USA.
PY - 2013/8/23
Y1 - 2013/8/23
N2 - Background: There is significant interest in the generation of improved assays to clearly identify experimental mice possessing functional vision, a property that could qualify mice for inclusion in behavioral and neuroscience studies. Widely employed current methods rely on mouse responses to visual cues in assays of reflexes, depth perception, or cognitive memory. However, commonly assessed mouse reflexes can sometimes be ambiguous in their expression, while depth perception assays are sometimes confounded by variation in anxiety responses and exploratory conduct. Furthermore, in situations where experimental groups vary in their cognitive memory capacity, memory assays may not be ideal for assessing differences in vision.Results: We have optimized a non-invasive behavioral assay that relies on an untrained, innate response to identify individual experimental mice possessing functional vision: slow angled-descent forepaw grasping (SLAG). First, we verified that SLAG performance depends on vision and not olfaction. Next, all members of an age-ranged cohort of 158 C57BL/6 mice (57 wild-type, 101 knockout, age range 44-241 days) were assessed for functional vision using the SLAG test without training or conditioning. Subjecting the population to a second innate behavioral test, Dark Chamber preference, corroborated that the functional vision assessment of SLAG was valid.Conclusions: We propose that the SLAG assay is immediately useful to quickly and clearly identify experimental mice possessing functional vision. SLAG is based on a behavioral readout with a significant innate component with no requirement for training. This will facilitate the selection of mice of known sighted status in vision-dependent experiments that focus on other types of behavior, neuroscience, and/or cognitive memory.
AB - Background: There is significant interest in the generation of improved assays to clearly identify experimental mice possessing functional vision, a property that could qualify mice for inclusion in behavioral and neuroscience studies. Widely employed current methods rely on mouse responses to visual cues in assays of reflexes, depth perception, or cognitive memory. However, commonly assessed mouse reflexes can sometimes be ambiguous in their expression, while depth perception assays are sometimes confounded by variation in anxiety responses and exploratory conduct. Furthermore, in situations where experimental groups vary in their cognitive memory capacity, memory assays may not be ideal for assessing differences in vision.Results: We have optimized a non-invasive behavioral assay that relies on an untrained, innate response to identify individual experimental mice possessing functional vision: slow angled-descent forepaw grasping (SLAG). First, we verified that SLAG performance depends on vision and not olfaction. Next, all members of an age-ranged cohort of 158 C57BL/6 mice (57 wild-type, 101 knockout, age range 44-241 days) were assessed for functional vision using the SLAG test without training or conditioning. Subjecting the population to a second innate behavioral test, Dark Chamber preference, corroborated that the functional vision assessment of SLAG was valid.Conclusions: We propose that the SLAG assay is immediately useful to quickly and clearly identify experimental mice possessing functional vision. SLAG is based on a behavioral readout with a significant innate component with no requirement for training. This will facilitate the selection of mice of known sighted status in vision-dependent experiments that focus on other types of behavior, neuroscience, and/or cognitive memory.
KW - Behavioral assay
KW - C57BL/6
KW - Dark chamber
KW - Innate behavior
KW - Mouse
KW - SLAG
KW - Vision
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U2 - 10.1186/1744-9081-9-35
DO - 10.1186/1744-9081-9-35
M3 - Article
C2 - 23971729
AN - SCOPUS:84882473741
SN - 1744-9081
VL - 9
JO - Behavioral and Brain Functions
JF - Behavioral and Brain Functions
IS - 1
M1 - 35
ER -