ThermoMaze

In mammals, two fundamental brain states can be readily identified by basic electrophysiological monitoring: “preparative” and “consummatory” states. Consummatory behaviors include eating, drinking, and resting – including non-rapid eye movement sleep. Revealing the significance of switching between these states for cognition requires collecting a sufficient amount of brain data and the experimental control of consummatory classes of behavior.

In this project, we developed the ThermoMaze, a behavioral paradigm that allows the experimenter to guide small rodents to multiple positions in a two-dimensional environment.

Decreasing the maze floor temperature induces heat seeking behavior and after finding a warm spot the animal will stay immobile at that spot for extended periods of time, allowing for recording large amounts of neurophysiological data in immobility-related brain states. The paradigm exploits natural behavior.

A location that provides a warm shelter needs to be remembered and generalized for future strategies. Our paradigm offers means to investigate exploratory-consummatory transitions, wake-sleep continuity in the same physical location and, in the reverse direction, the physiological processes that evaluate discomfort levels, motivate behavioral transition from rest to exploration and the decision-making circuit mechanisms that gives rise to overt behaviors.

Our novel behavioral paradigm exploits natural learning patterns in rodents. The ThermoMaze will allow for detailed studies of brain correlates of preparatory-consummatory transitions and open new options for studying temperature homeostasis.