<aside> 👉 NOTE: Mice do not need to be food deprived for this task.

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Table of Contents

Odours

An “odor set” consists of a habituation odor (Ohab), one test odor. All odorants will be diluted in mineral oil to an approximate vapor partial pressure of 1.0 Pa (See Odour Dilutions for specific mixture amounts for the specific odors used)

Pre- and Post-test parameters

  1. Inter-trial Interval (ITI) will remain at a constant value of 5 mins
  2. Each odor (including mineral oil) will be presented for a total of 50sec
  3. Mineral Oil (MO) will be presented first (1 trial) – experimenter times “investigation time” using a Seiko stop watch a. Investigation is any time a mouse’s nose is with 1 cm of the teaball
  4. The Ohab will be presented 4 times (4 trials) – experimenter times investigation time
  5. T1, the test odor, (1 trial) – experimenter times investigation time
  6. There will be a total of 6 trials (Total: ~ 30 minutes)

Pre- and Post-test Steps

  1. Lay out the number of clean teaballs needed per mouse (1 teaball/odor; each mouse will require 6 teaballs)
  2. Cut out 1 inch squares of filter paper (#1; Whatman, Florham Park, NJ) on which odor will be pipetted – fold it twice into a square
  3. Place 1 square in each open teaball
  4. Before each trial, pipette 60 ÎĽL of the diluted odor directly onto filter paper and latch the teaball.
  5. To “present” the odor, hang the teaball in the corner of the test cage to allow mice to investigate (approximately same level each time and same corner each trial for every mice) – experimenter will be timing and recording
  6. Each cage should have 2 stopwatches: one to measure the trial duration and ITI; another to record investigation times