2022 Refinement Grant: Refined automated assessment of anhedonia, motivation and attention in mice

The behavioral assessment of anhedonia, motivation and attention represents a cornerstone of behavioral neuroscience, but is stressful and tedious for both, the involved animals and researchers. We will develop and promote protocols for assessing these behavioral paradigms fully automated in IntelliCage system. Thereby mice can voluntarily perform test sessions, while acting naturally in an undisturbed environment that also includes their normal social habitat. This will drastically reduce stress for the animals and increase validity of the generated data. The infrastructure, the protocols and our expertise will be actively promoted to interested researchers, including assistance and training of the involved experimenters.