Measuring cognitive flexibility and decision-making behaviours in rodents using a Dynamic Strategy Shifting Task
Speaker: Professor Thomas Burne
Queensland Brain Institute
University of Queensland
Title: Measuring cognitive flexibility and decision-making behaviours in rodents using a Dynamic Strategy Shifting Task
Abstract: Cognitive flexibility is the ability to adjust behaviour according to a changing environment and is impaired in patients with many disorders including schizophrenia. Cognitive flexibility includes measures of sustained attention, response inhibition, working memory and task switching. There are no existing rodent behavioural tasks that measure all these components in a single procedure. We have recently developed a novel integrated suite of operant behavioural procedures to investigate cognitive flexibility deficits in rodents using a Dynamic Strategy Shifting Task (DSST). Our goal is to evaluate pharmacological agents that may treat the cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia, and more broadly other neuropsychiatric and neurological conditions. We have addressed concerns in the field relating to the extensive investment of time (months of training and testing) involved in well- validated rodent paradigms, which has limited their use in preclinical drug screening. The simplicity of our procedure leads to rapid training (typically within 5 sessions) and we have shown that rats readily learn to dynamically switch between contingencies (a visually cued rule, a spatial rule, and a non-spatial rule) within a single 30-minute session). Despite the simplicity of the DSST we show that rodents display complex decision-making behaviours. I will discuss our recent data in male and female rats and mice using several compounds known to improve attention and memory, as a platform for high-throughput screening of novel compounds.
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Neuroscience seminars at the QBI play a major role in the advancement of neuroscience in the Asia-Pacific region. The primary goal of these seminars is to promote excellence in neuroscience through the exchange of ideas, establishing new collaborations and augmenting partnerships already in place.
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