20230808-AI coding-1st round/269 – Lee 2014.txt

PMID: 25165850 PMCID: PMC4148240 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105340
Methods
Subjects
All experiments were conducted with approval from the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee at the University of California, San Francisco. Five Sprague-Dawley dams with litters of postnatal day 6 (P6) pups from were obtained from Charles River Laboratories (Gilroy, CA). Each litter contained only males and was culled to ten pups. In total, the males were taken from at least ten different litters. On P7, animals from each litter were randomly assigned to control and treatment groups. They were weaned at P23 and housed three per cage under standard lab housing with 12 h light/dark cycle. Animals were food restricted (access to food only during light cycle) for tasks involving object recognition to increase activity and object exploration.

Anesthesia
Anesthesia was delivered as described previously [14], [30], [31]. Briefly, animals in the treatment groups received either isoflurane or desflurane as a single agent in air and oxygen (FiO250%) at 1 Minimum Alveolar Concentration [27] for four hours. MAC was determined by tail clamping every 15 minutes, and anesthetic concentration was adjusted accordingly, so that on average 50% of animals would move in response to clamping (Fig. 1). 12 out of 18 animals anesthetized with isoflurane survived to undergo behavioral testing, and 13 out of 18 animals anesthetized with desflurane survived and underwent behavioral testing. Control animals were concurrently placed in an anesthesia glove box of the same material and conditions without being exposed to anesthesia or tail clamping. Animals were kept on a warming blanket, and temperatures were measured using an infrared laser thermometer and maintained with a goal of 35°C.
Histology
Brains from the two anesthetized groups and the control group (n = 10 per group) were assessed for acute neuronal death. Twelve hours after anesthesia, animals were transcardially perfused with cold 4% paraformaldehyde in phosphate-buffered saline and brains were removed, postfixed, and sunk in sucrose solution. They were then sliced into 60 micron-thick slices and every other slice was mounted and stained with FluoroJade C, a marker specific for neurodegeneration [32], [33] (FJC, 0.001%, Millipore, Billerica, MA). FJ-positive cells were counted using Nikon Eclipse 80i microscope under 20X magnification in each slice containing the structure of interest. Structures included in analysis were the anterodorsal (AD), anteroventral (AV), laterodorsal (LD), and anteromedial (AM) thalamic nuclei, as well as CA1-3 regions of the hippocampus and the dentate gyrus.

Object Recognition Tasks
Object recognition was assessed using similar arrangements as others [19], [28]. Behavior testing occurred during the light phase of the circadian cycle between 0800 and 1700 hrs in two separate arenas, hereafter referred to as contexts, of identical size (61 cm square base, walls 50 cm high). Context 1 had yellow walls with a base covered in wood-effect vinyl lining, and context 2 had black walls with a black plastic base. Different visual cues were placed on the walls of each context. A video camera (SONY HDR-CX190) was mounted 2 meters above the testing area for recording and observing subjects. For each task, except the allocentric object-location task, subjects were placed into contexts in the same location and facing the south wall (away from the objects). Beginning at P42, subjects were habituated to the two contexts prior to testing by being placed individually into the context for 5 min per day for 4 consecutive days. All animals underwent all behavioral tasks. Subjects were tested on the same day for any given task and in the same sequence of tasks. All tasks were performed in the order presented in subsequent weeks, except for the first two (novel object and object-place) which were performed in the same week. The order of testing during the day was counterbalanced among groups.

Investigation of an object was defined as sniffing or placing the nose within 1 cm of and oriented toward the object. Subjects were recorded, and observers blinded to group assignment were used to determine investigation times. Object investigation times during the initial exposure for each task were compared to assess for possible confounding effects of varying investigation times on the ability to recognize objects. All objects and testing arenas were wiped with 70% ethanol between testing.

Novel Object Recognition Testing began at P48 with novel object recognition. A single trial was performed for each animal consisting of “exposure” and “test” phases separated by a two-minute delay (Fig. 2A). During the exposure, subjects were placed into the context and allowed to explore two identical objects for four minutes. After the delay, they were placed into the same context for three minutes with one of the objects replaced with a novel object. Half of the subjects were tested in each context with the location (left or right) of the novel object counterbalanced among subjects.
Object-Place Recognition Subjects were tested in their ability to recognize an object and its location. Two trials were performed, and investigation times were totaled for the two trials. In the exposure, two different objects were presented in a context for four minutes. After a two-minute delay, two identical copies of one of the previous objects were presented in the same context for three minutes (Fig. 2B). Both objects were equally familiar, but one now occupied a different location within the context.
Allocentric Object-Place Recognition For the previous task, subjects were always introduced into the context facing the wall (south wall) opposite the two objects (Fig. 2C). In the allocentric version of the task, for the initial exposure, subjects were again placed into the context facing the south wall. In the test phase, however, the entry point was varied and half of the subjects were introduced facing either the east or west wall (Fig. 2C). Two trials were performed and the entry point was randomized among subjects.
Object-Context Recognition Subjects were assessed in their ability to recognize an object with a particular context. The task required two separate exposures, each lasting four minutes and separated by a two-minute delay (Fig. 2D). In the first exposure, a pair of identical objects was presented in a context. Next, subjects were placed in a different context with a different pair of objects. In the test phase, lasting three minutes, subjects were placed into a context with one of each previously encountered object. Thus, one object was presented in the same context as before, while the other object appeared within a context in which it had not been explored. Two trials were conducted, and the test phase occurred in opposite contexts for each trial (Fig. 2D).
Object-Place-Context Recognition Subjects were tested in their ability to recognize an object with its location and context (Fig. 2E). In the first exposure, two different objects were presented within a context. Next, subjects were placed in the opposite context with the same two objects and their locations reversed. Thus, after two exposures, each object was observed in both contexts and locations (left and right). In the test phase, two identical copies of either of the previous objects were presented in a context. The location and context associated with one object were familiar, while the other “displaced” object appeared in a location and context in which it had not been observed. Two trials were conducted with the test phase occurring in opposite contexts for each trial (Fig. 2E).
Social Behavior and Social Recognition
Following object recognition, animals were given unrestricted access to food. Social interaction and recognition were assessed using a discrimination paradigm one week after completing object recognition testing at P80. In the exposure, the subject was presented with a caged stimulus animal and a novel object for five minutes. This arrangement evaluates social behavior by determining whether subjects spend more time investigating the stimulus animal or object7. After a sixty-minute delay, subjects were presented simultaneously with the same “familiar” animal and a novel animal for three minutes. Recognition of the previously encountered animal was demonstrated by decreased investigation of the familiar target relative to the novel one.

Same-sex juvenile conspecifics were used as stimulus animals. Male pups five weeks of age were housed individually one week prior to testing. Investigation of the stimulus animal was defined as sniffing or direct contact with the subject’s nose or paws. Investigation of the novel object was defined as sniffing or placing the nose within 1 cm of and oriented toward object.

Statistical Analysis
Data were analyzed using Prism 6 Software for Mac OSX (GraphPad Software Inc., San Diego, CA). Data were assessed for normal distribution using the D’Agostino and Pearson test. Parametric tests were used for normally distributed data; otherwise, nonparametric tests were used for analysis. All comparisons used a two-tail test and a P value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Total FluoroJade-positive cells for each brain region were compared among the groups – control, desflurane, isoflurane – using one-way ANOVA for parametric data or the Kruskal-Wallis test for nonparametric data. Bonferroni’s post-test with multiple comparisons was used following one-way ANOVA, and Dunn’s post-test was used with the Kruskal-Wallis test. The fold-increase in neuronal death was determined for each structure by dividing the total FJ-positive cells for all anesthetized animals (n = 20) by the average number of FJ-positive cells per structure for control animals (n = 10).

Recognition tasks were first assessed by comparing the investigation times of each target using paired tests for each group. Paired t-test was used for normally distributed data, and nonparametric data were analyzed with the Wilcoxon matched-pairs rank test. Also, to identify possible confounding effects of varying investigation times on subsequent object/animal recognition, the times during the exposure phase were compared between the groups using either one-way ANOVA with Bonferroni’s post-test or the Kruskal-Wallis test with Dunn’s post-test.

In addition, a “discrimination index” (DI) was calculated and represents the relative time spent exploring each target (eg. Familiar versus Novel). To calculate DI, the time spent investigating the familiar target was subtracted from the time spent on the novel target, and this was divided by the total time spent investigating the two (eg. DI = (Novel-Familiar)/(Total Time)). This value was compared to a theoretical value of zero using one sample t-test to assess whether a preference was shown for one of the objects, and a positive DI indicates preference for the novel aspect of the task. For each task, DI of control animals was compared against DI of all anesthetized animals. Also, within the group of anesthetized animals, the DI of desflurane-treated subjects was compared with that of isoflurane-treated subjects. These comparisons were made using either unpaired t-test for parametric data or the Mann Whitney test for nonparametric data.