Abstract
The startle response is an unconditional reflex, characterized by the rapid contraction of facial and skeletal muscles, to a sudden and intense startling stimulus. It is an especially useful tool in translational research for its consistency across species, simple neural circuitry, and sensitivity to a variety of experimental manipulations. The rodent acoustic startle response is commonly used to study fundamental properties of the central nervous system, including habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, fear and anxiety, sensorimotor gating, and drug effects. The rodent startle response is typically assessed in stabilimeter chambers, and while these systems are excellent at measuring startle, they are designed only for this sole purpose. In the present study, we used the VideoFreeze system—a widely used tool for studying Pavlovian fear conditioning—to assess the acoustic startle response in freely moving mice. We validated the use of this system to quantify startle response amplitude and prepulse inhibition of startle. This is the first demonstration to date of using standard video in the automated assessment of the acoustic startle response in rodents. We believe that researchers already using the VideoFreeze system will benefit from the additional ability to assess startle without the purchase of new equipment.
Highlights
The startle response is an unconditional reflex, characterized by the rapid contraction of facial and skeletal muscles, to a sudden and intense startling stimulus, such as a noise burst, air puff, or light flash (Landis and Hunt, 1939; Koch and Schnitzler, 1997; Berg and Balaban, 1999; Swerdlow et al, 1999)
We found that the VideoFreeze system accurately measured the startle response and prepulse inhibition (PPI) of this response in mice
The traditional floor deflection potentiometer startle systems are excellent at measuring startle responses, they are complex, specialized only for startle, expensive, and take up lab space. We suggest this advancement could be useful for labs that already own VideoFreeze systems and may want to evaluate startle
Summary
The startle response is an unconditional reflex, characterized by the rapid contraction of facial and skeletal muscles, to a sudden and intense startling stimulus, such as a noise burst, air puff, or light flash (Landis and Hunt, 1939; Koch and Schnitzler, 1997; Berg and Balaban, 1999; Swerdlow et al, 1999). The latency of the rodent acoustic startle response is estimated to be between 5 and 12 ms among different muscle groups (e.g., neck, hindlimb) (Ison et al, 1973; Willott et al, 1979; Davis et al, 1982; Cassella et al, 1986; Parham and Willott, 1988; Lingenhohl and Friauf, 1994; Yeomans and Frankland, 1995; Pilz and Schnitzler, 1996; Koch and Schnitzler, 1997; Carlson and Willott, 1998) Because of this challenge, the rodent startle response is typically assessed in small stabilimeter chambers that constrain animal movement (Geyer and Swerdlow, 1998; Geyer and Dulawa, 2003). The ability to measure rodent startle intensity using alternative methods such as standard video in a Skinner-type conditioning chamber could be exceptionally valuable
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