Methods

1
Methods

• 6 mice were placed in ASR testing cages.
• These trials were done with a 10 min. adaptation
  period of 35 dB background noise increasing to 80
  dB during testing
• The mice were tested using 25 no-gap control
  trials 25 gap trials.

2

• No-gap trials were done with a constant
  background noise, while gap trials had a break in
  background noise just before the startle.
• Data were collected for 125 ms for each trial
  using the Startle Transform program.
• The data were then analyzed using ANOVA
  procedures for repeated measures (P lt 0.05)

3
Results

• Figure 1. Shows the response over a 125 ms time
  interval for gap and no gap trials.

4

• Both responses exceeded 4 standard deviations of
  previous activity before startle in order to be
  recorded.
• Note there is a greater response of the no-gap
  after the startle.

5

• Figure 2 shows the effect of the testing-period
  of mice on response amplitude for both gap and
  no-gap trials.

6

• There was a significant effect of gap on response
  amplitude (Plt0.0001)
• The effect that test-day had on response
  amplitude for no-gap trials, we found no
  significant difference (P 0.1275)
• Test-day did have a significant difference on
  response amplitude for gap trials (P 0.0397).

7
Discussionimportant findings 1

• Our results indicate that there is some
  inhibition in the ASR of mice when there gaps in
  background noise directly before the startle.
• Figure 2. shows that there was significant
  difference on response between the gap vs. no-gap
  data.

8
Findings 2

• No-gap data shows no significant difference test
  day had on response.
• There was a significant difference test-day had
  on response for gap trials. However, this
  significance was due to an increase in response
  over test day.
• There could have been an error in our methods
  because test-day 3 was 2 days test-after days 1
  and 2. Other experiments should be done to see
  if time period between test days has an effect on
  learning.