A standardized and reproducible behavioral protocol to elicit visual spatial attention in mice.

ABSTRACT: Understanding how neural activity gives rise to cognitive processes such as selective attention is a fundamental goal of neuroscience. An important but often overlooked advance towards this goal requires the development and sharing of rigorous and reproducible behavioral tasks across labs; this is particularly important given the recent surge in studies of cognition and perception in mice. Here, we developed a standardized training protocol for head-fixed mice to become experts in a psychometric visual contrast detection task in just 17 days. Experts detected stimuli at two distinct spatial locations for several hundred trials per day. As consecutive trials elapsed at either location, the speed, accuracy, and contrast sensitivity of visual perception improved - all hallmarks of spatial att

SUBMITTER: Peelman K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12767522 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature