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Poster Session A: Tuesday, August 12, 1:30 – 4:30 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Mouse lockbox: a sequential mechanical decision-making task for freely moving mice

Marcus Nicolaas Boon¹, Niek Andresen², Sole Traverso¹, Sophia Meier, Friedrich Schuessler, Olaf Hellwich³, Lars Lewejohann², Christa Thöne-Reineke², Henning Sprekeler¹, Katharina Hohlbaum⁴; ¹Technische Universität Berlin, ²Freie Universität Berlin, ³TU Berlin, ⁴German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment

Presenter: Marcus Nicolaas Boon

Advances in automated tracking tools have sparked a growing interest in studying naturalistic behavior in animals. Yet, traditional decision-making tasks remain the norm for assessing learning behavior in neuroscience. Here, we present an alternative sequential decision-making task to study complex mouse behavior. We developed a 3D-printed mechanical puzzle, a so-called lockbox, that requires a sequence of four steps to be solved in a specific order. During the task, the mice move around freely, enabling the emergence of complex behavioral patterns. We observed that mice exhibit a high level of motivation, willingly engage in the task, and learn to solve it in only a few trials. To analyze the strategy the mice use to solve the task, we used three cameras to capture different perspectives and developed a custom data analysis pipeline. Our analyses suggest that the rapidly increasing performance is primarily due to the acquisition of manipulation skills, although first signs of a cognitive strategy for the task appear during later trials.

Topic Area: Reward, Value & Social Decision Making

Extended Abstract: Full Text PDF