Selective breeding for increased home cage physical activity in collaborative cross and Hsd:ICR mice.

Selective breeding experiments for increased wheel running and open field behavior have identified genetic and neurobiological factors associated with increased voluntary physical activity in mice, but no previous study has directly selected for increased distance traveled in the home cage. Therefore, within-family selection was applied to increase home cage activity as measured by continuous video tracking using two different starting populations, G2:F1 Collaborative Cross (CC) and Hsd:ICR mice. Genetic correlations with distance traveled on running wheels and in the open field were evaluated by mid-parent offspring regression.

Functional analysis of neurovascular adaptations to exercise in the dentate gyrus of young adult mice associated with cognitive gain.

The discovery that aerobic exercise increases adult hippocampal neurogenesis and can enhance cognitive performance holds promise as a model for regenerative medicine. This study adds two new pieces of information to the rapidly growing field. First, we tested whether exercise increases vascular density in the granular layer of the dentate gyrus, whole hippocampus, and striatum in C57BL/6J mice known to display procognitive effects of exercise.

Acute effects of acamprosate and MPEP on ethanol Drinking-in-the-Dark in male C57BL/6J mice.

Background: Recently, a simple procedure in mice, Drinking-in-the-Dark (DID), was hypothesized to have value for medication development for human alcoholism. In DID, mice are offered intermittent, limited access to ethanol over a series of days during the dark phase that results in rapid drinking to intoxication in predisposed genotypes.

Methods: We measured the effects of acamprosate or MPEP, metabotropic glutamate 5 receptor (mGluR5) antagonist, on intake of 20% ethanol, plain tap water or 10% sugar water using the DID procedure in male C57BL/6J mice.