Behaviour batteries

Robert M. J. Deacon

Retired research Lecturer at the Experimental Psychology Department at Oxford University, UK.
Head of Rodent Behaviour at Cogram's laboratory at the IEB, faculty of Science, University of Chile.
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Robert M. J. Deacon, Ph.D., has over forty years of experience in rodent behaviour as the head of the rodent behaviour Unit and Lecturer at the Experimental
Psychology Department of Oxford University, UK. Dr.Deacon graduated in Pharmacology at University of Cardiff, Wales, UK. Dr. Deacon received a Ph.D. in Psychopharmacology at the University of Wales, UK. Rob is a leading researcher in the field of mouse behaviour with over a hundred of peer review publications, including seven published in Nature Protocols in a single year. Dr. Deacon worked as Pharmacologist Group Leader at Roussel Laboratories at Swindon, UK in drug discovery. As the Head of the rodent behaviour unit at Oxford University heled several programs on rodent behaviour and rare diseases.

Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB)
Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity (IEB)
Faculty of Science, University of Chile
Email: robert.deacon@neuro-dvi.co.uk

Activities of Daily Living

Deterioration in the ability to perform "Activities of daily living" (ADL) is an early sign of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Preclinical behavioural screening of possible treatments for AD currently largely focuses on cognitive testing, which frequently demands expensive equipment and lots of experimenter time. However, human episodic memory (the most severely affected aspect of memory in AD) is different to rodent memory, which seems to be largely non-episodic. Therefore the present ways of screening for new AD treatments for AD in rodents are intrinsically unlikely to succeed. A new approach to preclinical screening would be to characterise the ADL of mice. Fortuitously, several such assays have recently been developed at Oxford, and here the three most sensitive and well-characterised are presented.

Assessing Burrowing, Nest Construction, and Hoarding in Mice

Nest Building Behavior as an Early Indicator of Behavioral Deficits in Mice

Digging and marble burying in mice: simple methods for in vivo identification of biological impacts

Robert Deacon, Nature Protocols volume 1, pages 122–124 (2006)

Octodon degus Philogeny Behaviour and habitat Brain atlas degus & Alzheimer’ disease & aging Behaviour batteries