Table 6 Other Neurobehavior Tests for Potential Use in SAH Studies
From: Neurological and neurobehavioral assessment of experimental subarachnoid hemorrhage
Tests | Species | Neurobehavior Assessed | Measures | Methods |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Five-choice serial reaction task | Rat | Attention | Steady-state procedure in which the effects of various neural and behavioral manipulations are examined on a baseline of stable attention performances | Rat is required to detect brief flashes of light occurring in one of the 5 holes in order to earn food pellets |
Reaction time procedure | Rat | Attention | rat's response to visual stimuli while its head is in a fixed location- time it takes for the rat to withdraw its head from the central location and thus cease to break the vertical photocell beam | rat is trained to hold its head in a central location by interrupting the photocell beam there. Brief visual stimuli are presented to either side of the rats head |
Active avoidance conditioning paradigm (eg. Fear conditioning) | Rat | Learning/memory to avoid noxious stimulus | Escape or avoidance latencies | Rat is trained to avoid noxious stimulus by withdrawing itself from the source of the stimuli (eg. Foot shock) |
Nonmatching to sample (NMTS)/matching to sample tests (MTS, can be either spatial or non-spatial) | Rat | Working memory test (trial-unique) | Latency to make the choice/error in choice (either to pick the same [MTS] or alternative [NMTS] stimulus) | Rat is pre-trained either to choose (on test trial) the same or alternative stimulus which is shown on sample trial |
Delayed NMTS/MTS tests | Rat | Short-term memory | Latency to make the choice/error in choice (either to pick the same [MTS] or alternative [NMTS] stimulus) | Same as NMTS/MTS tests except they introduce various inter-trial intervals |
Radial-arm maze | Rat | Spatial working memory | Errors in first 10 choices, total errors/session | Food-deprived rats trained to learn to avoid choosing arms (8 arms with food baited in one arm) they already visited (where there are no food pellets) as they learn the spatial location of each arm and remember the locations they had visited |
Open Field | Rat | Exploratory and locomotor activity | Locomotion (number of square crossings), rearing, grooming, stereotypical behaviors (licking, biting, head weaving) | Video camera positioned above open field to consistently record behavior of rodents in the open field apparatus |
Perceptual attentional set shifting task | Rat | Complex attention | Reversal/set shift task where rat required to discriminate which of 2 bowls has food based on variations in odor and texture of the medium the food is in | Number of trials and errors to learn location of food |
Morris water maze | Rat | Spatial learning and memory | Escape latency, swimming distance, time spent in each quadrants, annulus crossing numbers | Animals are allowed freely swim to find a platform in swimming pool, guided by extramaze cues that surround the pool |
Eyeblink classical conditioning | Rabbit | Associated learning | Number of paired trials required to reach the learning criterion (eg. 8 conditioned responses in 9 consecutive trials) | One eye held open. Conditioned stimulus such as a sound presented after unconditioned stimulus such as corneal airpuff. Paired trial present throughout the training. Minitorque potentiometer measures nictitating membrane/eyeblink response. |
Open field | Rabbit | Behavioral reactivity | Movement activity (eg. Jump, rearing, locomotor, grooming), social behavior, aggressive behavior (strong blows with the hindpaws), emotional tension (number boluses), passive-defensive behavior (freezing time) | Video camera positioned above open field records behavior of animal in the open field apparatus during a specific time period |
Discriminative avoidance/approach task | Rabbit | Cognition | Number of training sessions required for animals to attain the criterion | Rabbits learn to prevent a foot-shock by stepping in a large activity wheel in response to a shock-predictive tone and they ignore different tone which does not predict the shock |
Delayed-non-matching-to-position (DNMP) | Dog | Visuospatial learning/memory and working memory | Response-choice latency on the test trial | Animals are allowed to displace the red block and retrieve the food reward beneath the block on the sample trial. Animals are permitted access to the food reward by displacing the block over the non-match position on the test trial (inter-trial interval varies for working memory) |
Open field | Dog | Exploratory and locomotor activity | Exploratory behavior, locomotion, inactivity, sniffing, urinating, jumping, rearing, vocalization | Video camera positioned above open field records behavior of animal in the open field apparatus during a specific time period |
Object discrimination task | Dog | Working memory | Performance accuracy | Two wooden blocks that were identical except for color present as stimuli (eg black and white). Dogs are pre-trained to approach one of the two blocks to obtain food reward. Testing is repeated after SAH |
Reversal task (usually followed by object or size discrimination task) | Dog | Executive function (inhibitory control, performance monitoring-eg reversal learning) | Total number of errors | Two identical wooden blocks in color and material, different only in size present as stimuli. Dogs learn the size preference for the food reward, followed by reversal learning in which the reward contingencies of positive and negative block are reversed |