Ccd mini ccir

Operant chambers were contained in sound attenuated boxes with ventilation fans (Med Associates Inc., St. Albans, VT, USA) and overhead cameras for monitoring behavior (CCD Mini CCIR, Samsung). All chambers were 50 × 50 × 50 cm and were assembled for either 5CSRTT or SDT training (Turner et al., 2013 (link)). For 5CSRTT there was a curved wall with five horizontal apertures each containing a light and head entry detector. On the opposing wall there was a house light and food magazine that was also equipped with a light and head entry detector. The arrangement for SDT training was on a single chamber wall with a house light, signal display panel and nose poke port in the middle, and a food magazine on either side of the nose poke port. The central nose poke port and magazines each contained a light and head entry detector. The signal display panel consisted of a 3 × 3 grid of light emitting diodes (5 mm, green diffuse, 80 MCD). All rats were rewarded with 45 mg grain pellets (F0021, dustless precision pellet, Bioserv, Frenchtown, NJ, USA) delivered to the food magazines. The protocols was designed using MedState Notation while operation and data acquisition was conducted using Med-PC for Windows software (Med Associates Inc., St. Albans, VT, USA).

The forced swim test (FST) is commonly used to measure behavioral despair. Mice were individually placed into a clear cylindrical vessel (13 cm diameter × 20 cm high) containing clean 25°C water to a depth of 11.5 cm. At this depth, mice cannot touch the bottom or escape from the top. Mice were placed into the water for 10 min and activity was recorded with an overhead video camera (CCD Mini CCIR, Samsung). At the end of testing mice were allowed to dry in a cage filled with paper towel prior to returning to their home cage. Videos were then analyzed using tracking software (Ethovision XT 9, Noldus, Netherlands) to measure the total distance traveled and the total duration of immobility (defined as 0%–5% activity) in 1 min time bins. Clean water was used for each animal and the container was wiped down with 70% ethanol.