The FVB/N mice: A well suited strain to study learning and memory processes using olfactory cues

The FVB/N mice are well suited to generate transgenic animals. These mice are also particularly sensitive to seizures and neurodegeneration induced by systemic administration of chemoconvulsants and are very useful to model epilepsy. However, previous studies report strong cognitive and visual impairments suggesting this background unsuitable for behavioral analysis. In this study, we assessed and compared learning abilities of FVB/N mice to the well characterized C57BL/6 strain using the olfactory tubing maze, a non-visual hippocampus-dependent task in which the mice were trained to learn odor-reward associations. Exploratory behavior and spontaneous locomotor activity were then compared using the open field test. We demonstrated that FVB/N mice were able to learn the task, reaching at the end of the test a high percentage of correct responses. Interestingly, the performance of the FVB/N mice was at least similar to that of the C57BL/6 mice. Moreover, in contrast to previous reports, the FVB/N mice displayed a spontaneous locomotor activity lower than C57BL/6 mice. Our study demonstrated that FVB/N mice are not cognitively impaired and that their learning and memory performance can be assessed when the task is based on olfaction rather than vision.