Working memory and pattern separation in founder strains of the BXD recombinant inbred mouse panel.

Working memory and pattern separation are fundamental cognitive abilities which, when impaired, significantly diminish quality of life. Discovering genetic mechanisms underlying innate and disease-induced variation in these cognitive abilities is a critical step towards treatments for common and devastating neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. In this regard, the trial-unique nonmatching-to-location assay (TUNL) is a touchscreen operant conditioning procedure allowing simultaneous quantification of working memory and pattern separation in mice and rats.

Strain and sex dependent effects of isolation housing relative to environmental enrichment on operant sensation seeking in mice.

Sensation seeking is a multidimensional phenotype that predicts the development of drug addiction in humans and addiction-like drug seeking in rodents. Several lines of evidence suggest that chronic stress increases sensation seeking and addiction-like drug seeking through common genetic mechanisms. Discovery and characterization of these mechanisms would reveal how chronic stress interacts with the genome to influence sensation seeking and how drugs of abuse hijack these fundamental reward mechanisms to drive addiction.

Reinstating Over-Pouring Behavior: Importance of the Imagined Drinking Context.

College students significantly over-pour more than a standard drink in a free-pour simulated alcohol-pouring task. Due to this effect, it is likely that much of the self-report alcohol consumption data incorrectly or underreport actual alcohol consumption. We sought to determine factors that influence over-pouring.

Environmental enrichment influences novelty reactivity, novelty preference, and anxiety via distinct genetic mechanisms in C57BL/6J and DBA/2J mice.

Environmental factors such as stress drive the development of drug addiction in genetically vulnerable individuals; the genes underlying this vulnerability are unknown. One strategy for uncovering these genes is to study the impact of environmental manipulation on high-throughput phenotypes that predict drug use and addiction-like behaviors. In the present study, we assessed the viability of this approach by evaluating the relative effects of environmental enrichment and isolation housing on three high-throughput phenotypes known to predict variation on distinct aspects of intravenous drug self-administration.

Discovery of a Role for in Habituation and Cocaine Induced Locomotor Activation in Mice Using Heterogeneous Functional Genomic Analysis.

Substance use disorders are prevalent and present a tremendous societal cost but the mechanisms underlying addiction behavior are poorly understood and few biological treatments exist. One strategy to identify novel molecular mechanisms of addiction is through functional genomic experimentation. However, results from individual experiments are often noisy.