A standardized and reproducible behavioral framework to elicit multiple aspects of visual spatial attention in mice

Understanding how neural activity gives rise to cognitive processes such as selective attention is a fundamental goal of neuroscience. An important but often overlooked advance toward this goal requires the development and sharing of rigorous and reproducible behavioral tasks across labs; this is particularly important given the recent surge in studies of cognition and perception in mice. Here, we developed a standardized training protocol for head-fixed mice to become experts in a psychometric visual contrast detection task in just 18 days of training. Experts detected stimuli at two distinct spatial locations for several hundred trials per day. As consecutive trials elapsed at either location, perceptual speed, accuracy, and contrast sensitivity improved-all hallmarks of spatial attention improving performance, as seen in primates. These findings validate the efficacy of this protocol to reveal multiple behavioral metrics indicative of selective spatial attention in mice, establishing a rigorous, reproducible tool for the community.