For the 5-Choice Serial Reaction Time Test (5-CSRTT) we used the 5–9 Holes Box Operant Conditioning (LE507-76-0001) from Panlab Harvard Apparatus and the PACKWIN software (Panlab, v2.0.07). The day before the start of the test the mice were food deprived. For the whole duration of the test the animals received the 80% of their regular food intake (FI), based on their daily body weight (BW).
Animals were trained to respond to a brief, unpredictable visual stimulus (hole illumination) presented in one of five locations in order to obtain a food reward (reinforcement). The test consisted of 6 phases of increasing difficulty. Each session lasted 30 min and progressing from one phase to the next required meeting the criteria for at least two consecutive days. A detailed description of the different phases and the criteria used is summarized inTable 1 . During the last phase of the test, animals were exposed to a distractor consisting of: a sound (music), a smell (a cotton swab soaked in lemon extract) and a visual element (stroboscopic light). The learning capacity was measured as days needed to pass each phase, while the choice accuracy was measured in terms of correct, incorrect and omitted answers in the presence or absence of the distractor (Ciampoli et al., 2017 (link)).
Animals were trained to respond to a brief, unpredictable visual stimulus (hole illumination) presented in one of five locations in order to obtain a food reward (reinforcement). The test consisted of 6 phases of increasing difficulty. Each session lasted 30 min and progressing from one phase to the next required meeting the criteria for at least two consecutive days. A detailed description of the different phases and the criteria used is summarized in