Light phase does not affect operant sucrose self-administration in adult male C57BL/6JAbr mice

Circadian rhythm can have significant impacts on several physiological domains relevant to the expression of behaviour in mice, including body temperature, corticosterone levels, hormones and immune function. Mice are nocturnal; yet many behavioural studies are performed during the light phase, when mice are naturally inactive. Not surprisingly, the time of day when mice are behaviourally tested can significantly impact on domains such as locomotor activity, e.g. dark phase testing results in higher locomotion rates than light phase testing. However, effects on other behavioural domains, such as cognition, are not well-established, with inconsistent reports on improved cognition during dark phase testing compared to light phase testing in mice. Importantly, the impact of circadian rhythm on operant responding, a common task relevant to research into drug abuse and cognitive disorders, has rarely been investigated in mice. Here we evaluated if testing adult male C57BL/6JAbr mice in operant chambers during the light or dark phase affects acquisition of lever responding, lever discrimination under different fixed ratio (FR) schedules (FR1, FR2, FR4), and/or motivation under a progressive ratio schedule for 10% oral sucrose. We found no effect of circadian rhythm on levels of active and inactive lever pressing, or lever discrimination for oral sucrose at any stage of the experiment. These results may be due to high levels of motivation for sucrose under food restriction and low levels of task complexity limiting detection of any effect of light phase on operant behaviour.