Data on the optimization of behavioral tasks for senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8)

Abstract

This data article contains the supporting information for the research article entitled “Early onset of behavioral alterations in senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8)” [1]. Senescence-accelerated mouse prone 8 (SAMP8), which originally developed from AKR/J mice, shows learning and memory impairments at the age of 8–12 months. However, little information is still available on phenotypical characteristics of younger SAMP8. To fully understand the phenotype of younger SAMP8, we optimized two behavioral tasks for SAMP8. In the object recognition task, 4-month-old SAMP8 made significantly more contacts with the familiar objects compared to age-matched SAMR1, however, distance traveled for both strains of mice were comparable. In the fear conditioning task, conventionally-used CS–US combination failed to induce robust conditioned fear in both strains of mice. Keywords: SAMR1, SAMP8, Memory, Fear conditioning, Object recognition