Hippocampal Homer1 Levels Influence Motivational Behavior in an Operant Conditioning Task
Figure 1
Training performance of Homer1KO mice.
(a) In 5 habituation trials, all wild type (WT) mice show growing interest in the presented reward. Most of the Homer1KO mice, however, do not consume the sucrose pellets. (b) The learning curve in the fixed ratio/variable ratio (FR/VR) stage is slightly, but not significantly higher in Homer1KO mice compared to WT animals. This is due to the above-average performance of a subset of Homer1KO mice that already showed a response to the reward in the habituation phase, while the greater part of the Homer1KO animals show a below-average performance, thereby largely increasing the variance of the sample. (c) FR/VR results of training trial 15. A strong bimodal distribution of the Homer1KO group becomes apparent, consequently resulting in no significant difference when compared to WT animals.