Hope for the best or prepare for the worst? Towards a spatial cognitive bias test for mice.

ABSTRACT: Cognitive bias, the altered information processing resulting from the background emotional state of an individual, has been suggested as a promising new indicator of animal emotion. Comparable to anxious or depressed humans, animals in a putatively negative emotional state are more likely to judge an ambiguous stimulus as if it predicts a negative event, than those in positive states. The present study aimed to establish a cognitive bias test for mice based on a spatial judgment task and to apply it in a pilot study to serotonin transporter (5-HTT) knockout mice, a well-established mouse model for the study of anxiety- and depression-related behavior. In a first step, we validated that our setup can assess different expectations about the outcome of an ambiguous stimulus: mice having learn

SUBMITTER: Kloke V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4138164 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature