Mouse Behavior Core

Overview of Services

The Mouse Behavior Core facility at the University of Minnesota provides access to mouse behavior testing equipment and expert services to the UMN research community.

Motor function

• Rotarod – coordination, motor function and motor memory
• Balance beam – coordination and balance
• Pole test – bradykinesia
• Wireless running wheels – home cage activity, circadian rhythms
• Open field activity – general motor assessment, habituation
• Digigait – Automated gait analysis
• Grip strength

Affective behavior

• Elevated Plus Maze and Light/Dark Box – exploration based anxiety assessments
• Stress-induced hyperthermia – physiological stress response
• Novelty-induced hypophagia - suppression of feeding related to anxiety and depression
• Forced Swim and Tail Suspension Tests – Behavioral despair
• Sucrose Preference Test – Test for anhedonia
• Social Interaction – Sociability, anxiety, and social memory

Learning and Memory

• Barnes Maze – Spatial reference memory and reversal learning
• Y/T maze – Spatial working memory
• Novel object recognition – object memory
• Fear conditioning – Pavlovian conditioning of fear response, fear extinction
• Operant conditioning – Tasks based upon lever pressing or touch screen approach to obtain food reward based upon experimentally defined parameters

Addiction

• Behavioral sensitization – locomotor testing
• Place conditioning – conditioned preference or aversion
• Drug self-administration – IV or oral consumption of drug following instrumental response

Leadership

Director

Erin Larson

612-626-7269

larso323@umn.edu

Location and hours of operation

Contacts