Ace Therapeutics has a professional animal behavior testing and data analysis platform, and is committed to providing customers with high-quality and comprehensive learning and memory behavior testing services.

Introduction of Learning and Memory Tests for Psychiatric Disorders

Working memory, the goal-oriented active maintenance and manipulation of information in the mind, underlies a variety of complex cognitive functions, learning, and emotion regulation. A range of psychiatric disorders commonly demonstrate working memory deficits, although the severity of deficits depends on the psychiatric diagnosis. Working memory emerges through the coordination of multiple related processes ranging from sensory perception, cognitive control (e.g., updating, focusing) to motor action, thus requiring intimate communication between a wide range of brain regions.

Fig. 1 The passive Avoidance Test. (Brodziak A, et al., 2014)

Learning and Memory Testing Services

Ace Therapeutics provides behavioral testing services related to learning and memory, assessing the correlation between mental illness and behavior in rodents under different task conditions, and providing a reliable basis for how related diseases and drugs affect human learning and memory. The learning and memory tests we provide include but are not limited to the following:

• Object Recognition Test

The object recognition test is now among the most commonly used behavioral tests for mice. A mouse is presented with two similar objects during the first session, and then one of the two objects is replaced by a new object during a second session. The amount of time taken to explore the new object provides an index of recognition memory.

Advantages

• The experimental device is simple, does not involve external stimuli, and the experimental animals are tested in a completely free state.
• The experimental period is short, and the physical exertion of the experimental animals is small.
• More comprehensive data were used for the analysis of the results.

• Intellicage Place Learning and Cue Discrimination test

Intellicage is an automated test chamber for testing the cognitive abilities of mice in a social environment. Intellicage allows sensitive behavioral testing of cognitive, sensorimotor and motor abilities. Place learning is a cognitive test that measures an animal's ability to learn that water is only available at specific locations in a cage. The inversion of place is an effective test of the flexibility to learn a new location, while the probe test is an effective test of the animal's long-term memory. Cue discrimination is another test that can be used to measure cognitive and sensorimotor abilities. The animals were forced to discriminate between different cues in order to obtain water and avoid punishment by air pumping.

Advantages

• Allows for high-throughput testing in a socially rich environment, testing up to 15 animals in one chamber.
• Computer software performs all tests without any experimenter intervention. The test not only saves experimenters time, but also reduces animal handling.

• Passive Avoidance Test

The passive avoidance task is a fear aggravated test used to assess learning and memory in rodent models of central nervous system disorders. In this test, subjects learn to avoid situations that previously delivered an aversive stimulus, such as a foot shock. The chamber is divided into a light compartment and a dark compartment with a door in between. On the first day, animals can explore within two compartments. The next day, they received a slight foot shock in one of the compartments. Animals will learn to associate certain properties of the room with foot shocks. To test their learning and memory, the mice were then returned to a compartment where there was no electric shock. Mice with normal learning and memory will avoid entering the room where they were previously exposed to the shock.

Advantages

• Simple and easy-to-operate experiments
• Results are easily discernible and confident
• It can be used as an independent test experiment to provide subject parameters, and can also be used as an auxiliary or pre-screening experiment for other learning, memory and cognitive function experiments.

Ace Therapeutics offers customizable behavioral tests to meet specific scientific needs. Please feel free to make an inquiry and let us know what you want to achieve. Our team of experts will be in touch with you shortly to discuss your needs.

Reference

1. Brodziak A, Kołat E, Różyk-Myrta A. In search of memory tests equivalent for experiments on animals and humans. Med Sci Monit. 2014, 20:2733-2739.