Acute Sleep Fragmentation in C57BL/6J Mice

Male adult C57BL/6J mice between 8–12 weeks of age were used in this study (n= 110; Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME). Mice were given food and water ad libitum and housed under standard rodent colony conditions (lights on: 0800–2000 h, 21°C ± 1°C) at Western Kentucky University. Acute sleep fragmentation (ASF) experiments were performed using automated sleep fragmentation chambers (Lafayette Instrument Company; Lafayette, IN; model 80390) with a thin layer of corn bedding as previously described and each chamber contained no more than five mice^{23 (link)}. These chambers ensure that mice are subjected to sleep fragmentation and not absolute sleep deprivation^{16 (link)}. Mice were acclimated to the sleep fragmentation (SF) chambers for 48 h before the commencement of experiments to minimize carryover effects from the different cage environments^{24 (link)}. This study was conducted under the approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at Western Kentucky University (#19–11), and procedures followed the National Institutes of Health’s “Guide for the Use and Care of Laboratory Animals” and ARRIVE guidelines.