Fig. 1: Mice learned an unstructured, self-generated, self-paced lever press hold down task. | Nature Communications

Fig. 1: Mice learned an unstructured, self-generated, self-paced lever press hold down task.

From: Information normally considered task-irrelevant drives decision-making and affects premotor circuit recruitment

Fig. 1

a Behavioral schematic; mice learn to press and hold down a lever for at least a minimum duration to earn food reward. b Total Lever Presses across training days (1-way ANOVA, main effect of day, F2.9, 31.9 = 12.0, p < 0.0001). c %Presses met criteria (1-way ANOVA, main effect of day F4.22, 46.5 = 17.2, p < 0.0001). d Histogram of lever press durations (100 ms bins) on the final pretraining day (CRF = Continuous Ratio of Reinforcement), and final 800 ms and 1600 ms days. Dashed lines indicate criterion. 2-way RM ANOVA, main effect of Duration Bin F31,1056 = 34.1, p < 0.0001, and an interaction (Duration Bin/Criterion) F62,1056 = 10.5, p < 0.0001. e Median and Interquartile Range (IQR) of lever press durations (800 ms training: 2-way RM ANOVA, main effect only of Day, F5,55 = 19.5, p < 0.0001. 1600 ms training: 2-way RM ANOVA, main effect of Day F7,77 = 14.0, p < 0.0001, and interaction (Median/IQR x Day) F7,77 = 2.44, p = 0.026). f Duration median (Med) and IQR within a session, grouped by cumulative rewards. Linear regressions found non-zero slopes for Med on the first (F1,110 = 28.9, p < 0.0001, R2 = 0.21) and final (F1,115 = 12.6, p = 0.0006, R2 = 0.099) training day, while IQR had a non-zero slope on the first (F1,110 = 48.5, p < 0.0001, R2 = 0.306) but not last (F1,115 = 0.28, p = 0.59, R2 = 0.002) day. Med/IQR slopes did not differ on the first (F1,220 = 1.2, p = 0.027), but did differ by the final day (F1,230 = 9.1, p = 0.003). g Sample behavior of one trained mouse showing press durations in order of occurrence. h Upper cumulative sum from the same mouse/session. i, j Number of consecutive presses (i) and Overall % of presses (j) that were >2 Standard Errors (SE) above the mean in the upper cumulative sum. 2-way RM ANOVA, difference from order shuffled data for % (F1,11 = 17.1, p = 0.0017) and number of consecutive presses (F1,11 = 14.0, p = 0.0032). First days excluded, F’s1,11 > = 4.94, p’s < 0.05. All tests were two-tailed and corrected for multiple comparisons. 800 ms and 1600 ms refer to days where criterion was >800 ms or >1600 ms. ****p < 0.0001, ***p < 0.001, **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05. n = 12 mice. Points represent mean + SEM across mice, unless noted otherwise. See also Supplementary Fig. 1, Source Data.

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