Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.

In behavioural experiments, motivation to learn can be achieved using food rewards as positive reinforcement in food-restricted animals. Previous studies reduce animal weights to 80-90% of free-feeding body weight as the criterion for food restriction. However, effects of different degrees of food r...

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Autores principales:	Kalina Makowiecki, Geoff Hammond, Jennifer Rodger
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2012
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0e367183bc634a93b5e7f34a9fc93eca
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0e367183bc634a93b5e7f34a9fc93eca2021-11-18T08:09:43ZDifferent levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0048703https://doaj.org/article/0e367183bc634a93b5e7f34a9fc93eca2012-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmid/23144936/?tool=EBIhttps://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203In behavioural experiments, motivation to learn can be achieved using food rewards as positive reinforcement in food-restricted animals. Previous studies reduce animal weights to 80-90% of free-feeding body weight as the criterion for food restriction. However, effects of different degrees of food restriction on task performance have not been assessed. We compared learning task performance in mice food-restricted to 80 or 90% body weight (BW). We used adult wildtype (WT; C57Bl/6j) and knockout (ephrin-A2⁻/⁻) mice, previously shown to have a reverse learning deficit. Mice were trained in a two-choice visual discrimination task with food reward as positive reinforcement. When mice reached criterion for one visual stimulus (80% correct in three consecutive 10 trial sets) they began the reverse learning phase, where the rewarded stimulus was switched to the previously incorrect stimulus. For the initial learning and reverse phase of the task, mice at 90%BW took almost twice as many trials to reach criterion as mice at 80%BW. Furthermore, WT 80 and 90%BW groups significantly differed in percentage correct responses and learning strategy in the reverse learning phase, whereas no differences between weight restriction groups were observed in ephrin-A2⁻/⁻ mice. Most importantly, genotype-specific differences in reverse learning strategy were only detected in the 80%BW groups. Our results indicate that increased food restriction not only results in better performance and a shorter training period, but may also be necessary for revealing behavioural differences between experimental groups. This has important ethical and animal welfare implications when deciding extent of diet restriction in behavioural studies.Kalina MakowieckiGeoff HammondJennifer RodgerPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 7, Iss 11, p e48703 (2012)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Kalina Makowiecki Geoff Hammond Jennifer Rodger Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
description	In behavioural experiments, motivation to learn can be achieved using food rewards as positive reinforcement in food-restricted animals. Previous studies reduce animal weights to 80-90% of free-feeding body weight as the criterion for food restriction. However, effects of different degrees of food restriction on task performance have not been assessed. We compared learning task performance in mice food-restricted to 80 or 90% body weight (BW). We used adult wildtype (WT; C57Bl/6j) and knockout (ephrin-A2⁻/⁻) mice, previously shown to have a reverse learning deficit. Mice were trained in a two-choice visual discrimination task with food reward as positive reinforcement. When mice reached criterion for one visual stimulus (80% correct in three consecutive 10 trial sets) they began the reverse learning phase, where the rewarded stimulus was switched to the previously incorrect stimulus. For the initial learning and reverse phase of the task, mice at 90%BW took almost twice as many trials to reach criterion as mice at 80%BW. Furthermore, WT 80 and 90%BW groups significantly differed in percentage correct responses and learning strategy in the reverse learning phase, whereas no differences between weight restriction groups were observed in ephrin-A2⁻/⁻ mice. Most importantly, genotype-specific differences in reverse learning strategy were only detected in the 80%BW groups. Our results indicate that increased food restriction not only results in better performance and a shorter training period, but may also be necessary for revealing behavioural differences between experimental groups. This has important ethical and animal welfare implications when deciding extent of diet restriction in behavioural studies.
format	article
author	Kalina Makowiecki Geoff Hammond Jennifer Rodger
author_facet	Kalina Makowiecki Geoff Hammond Jennifer Rodger
author_sort	Kalina Makowiecki
title	Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
title_short	Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
title_full	Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
title_fullStr	Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
title_full_unstemmed	Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
title_sort	different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.
publisher	Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate	2012
url	https://doaj.org/article/0e367183bc634a93b5e7f34a9fc93eca
work_keys_str_mv	AT kalinamakowiecki differentlevelsoffoodrestrictionrevealgenotypespecificdifferencesinlearningavisualdiscriminationtask AT geoffhammond differentlevelsoffoodrestrictionrevealgenotypespecificdifferencesinlearningavisualdiscriminationtask AT jenniferrodger differentlevelsoffoodrestrictionrevealgenotypespecificdifferencesinlearningavisualdiscriminationtask
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Different levels of food restriction reveal genotype-specific differences in learning a visual discrimination task.

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