Measuring gustatory variation in mice: a short-term fluid-intake test

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Animal Behavior
• Sensory Science

Background:

• Individual variation in gustation is crucial for understanding sensory perception.
• Traditional two-bottle tests can be confounded by position preferences.
• Water restriction in gustatory studies can introduce confounding physiological effects.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a short-term fluid intake test for assessing gustatory variation in laboratory mice.
• To establish normative data for common tastants across multiple inbred mouse strains.
• To evaluate the reliability and specificity of the test paradigm.

Main Methods:

• Utilized single graduated cylinders to present tastant solutions, avoiding position preferences.
• Recorded fluid intake over a 6-hour period coinciding with the onset of the mice's drinking phase.
• Tested ten inbred mouse strains with sucrose, saccharin, quinine, HCl, NaCl, and monosodium glutamate solutions.
• Monitored food intake concurrently to assess nonspecific effects.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated pronounced strain differences in intake across all tested tastants.
• Identified specific strain sensitivities, such as C57BL/6J mice to quinine.
• Showed that short-term quinine administration had minor, transient effects on food intake and no significant long-term effects on food or fluid intake.
• Confirmed test reliability through positive correlations in repeated measurements.

Conclusions:

• The developed short-term fluid intake test is a reliable and valid tool for gustation research in mice.
• The paradigm effectively screens for individual variation in taste perception without water restriction.
• Its ease of use and minimal nonspecific effects support its application for screening multiple solutions and compounds.