F0021 dustless precision pellet

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).