Cognitive assessment of mice strains heterozygous for cell-adhesion genes reveals strain-specific alterations in timing

Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2014 Jan 20;369(1637):20120464. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2012.0464. Print 2014 Mar 5.

Abstract

We used a fully automated system for the behavioural measurement of physiologically meaningful properties of basic mechanisms of cognition to test two strains of heterozygous mutant mice, Bfc (batface) and L1, and their wild-type littermate controls. Both of the target genes are involved in the establishment and maintenance of synapses. We find that the Bfc heterozygotes show reduced precision in their representation of interval duration, whereas the L1 heterozygotes show increased precision. These effects are functionally specific, because many other measures made on the same mice are unaffected, namely: the accuracy of matching temporal investment ratios to income ratios in a matching protocol, the rate of instrumental and classical conditioning, the latency to initiate a cued instrumental response, the trials on task and the impulsivity in a switch paradigm, the accuracy with which mice adjust timed switches to changes in the temporal constraints, the days to acquisition, and mean onset time and onset variability in the circadian anticipation of food availability.

Keywords: cell adhesion; cognitive phenotyping; interval timing; mice.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Anticipation, Psychological / physiology*
  • Cell Adhesion / genetics*
  • Circadian Rhythm / physiology*
  • Cognition / physiology*
  • Feeding Behavior / physiology
  • Female
  • Heterozygote
  • Mice
  • Mice, Mutant Strains / genetics
  • Mice, Mutant Strains / physiology*
  • Models, Biological*
  • Species Specificity
  • Time Perception / physiology*