Standardized and reproducible measurement of decision-making in mice

Progress in science requires standardized assays whose results can be readily shared, compared, and reproduced across laboratories. Reproducibility, however, has been a concern in neuroscience, particularly for measurements of mouse behavior. Here we show that a standardized task to probe decision-making in mice produces reproducible results across multiple laboratories. We designed a task for head-fixed mice that combines established assays of perceptual and value-based decision making, and we standardized training protocol and experimental hardware, software, and procedures. We trained 140 mice across seven laboratories in three countries, and we collected 5 million mouse choices into a publicly available database. Learning speed was variable across mice and laboratories, but once training was complete there were no significant differences in behavior across laboratories. Mice in different laboratories adopted similar reliance on visual stimuli, on past successes and failures, and on estimates of stimulus prior probability to guide their choices. These results reveal that a complex mouse behavior can be successfully reproduced across multiple laboratories. They establish a standard for reproducible rodent behavior, and provide an unprecedented dataset and open-access tools to study decision-making in mice. More generally, they indicate a path towards achieving reproducibility in neuroscience through collaborative open-science approaches

Citric water as an alternative to water restriction for high-yield mouse behavior

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Axial morphology of the East-Pacific Rise crest at its intersection with the Mathematician hot-spot: results of the PARISUB'2010 cruise

International audienceThe PARISUB cruise was led in 2010 using the R/V L'Atalante, the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) AsterX and the manned submersible Nautile (Ifremer). The goal was to investigate the processes that occur during the interaction between the Mathematicians hotspot and the East-Pacific Rise at 16°N. The present spreading axis has an elevation of at least 400m above the average depth of the North Pacific ridge, indicating a high magmatic production. Lava previously sampled in this area are enriched in incompatible elements and isotopically, revealing so the contribution of an enriched end member of the mantle, i.e. the plume Surface geophysical data (multibeam bathymetry, gravity, magnetism) and near-bottom data (high-resolution bathymetry, gravity, magnetism, plume mapping) acquired during the cruise are used to measure tectonic structures, to individualize volcanic flows in relation with axial density variations and magnetic micro-anomalies. Here we present the results of the first high-resolution mapping of the ridge crest at 16°N using AUV. The maps, combined with visual ground truthing, show that most of the flows originate at the axial summit graben. Most often lava has drained fully or partially such that the point sources of the flow can be localized. Despite an expected high effusion rate, lobate flows predominate over sheet flows. Pillow flows are also well-represented, they constitute the most prominent volcanic structures of the area. The structure of the axial summit graben strongly varies along-axis. It is segmented with segments that trend differently (up to 5° of difference in their orientation). In some areas, the axial graben consists in one unique, well-depicted narrow graben. In other places, it consists in two narrow and parallel grabens. At last, at 15°46'N, the axial summit graben is much wider and it is constituted of numerous normal faults. At that location, the tectonic deformation is much less localized and the number of normal faults that form the graben is higher than elsewhere in the studied area, and the tectonic structures are little obscured by volcanic flows, compared to other segments of the axial graben. This area of widely distributed deformation coincides with a global slight change in the spreading center orientation