Obstacle Course (OC): a controlled-delivery rodent enrichment paradigm with an exercise-matched Control Course¶
Design · All designs
Evidence · 6 claims (6 for) · 1 study (1 causal),q2· 1 of 1 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study
Description¶
The Obstacle Course is an enrichment paradigm delivered outside animal housing that "enables systematic control over animal engagement with enrichment stimuli". Mice run a square track filled with 12 object-based obstacles for 1 h/day, 6 days/week for 9 weeks; two new obstacles are added and three rearrangements made per session, so mice experienced 132 obstacles over the enrichment period. An exercise-matched Control Course (CC) uses 12 fixed hurdles, identical in size and run for a fixed duration, serving "as a control for physical exercise". Beam sensors and an Arduino board track lap times.
Design Implications¶
Context¶
Requirements¶
- Mice must interact with each obstacle before proceeding through the track, and enrichment level can be matched across animals by fixing duration spent on the course or the number of laps completed
Constraints¶
- The authors note the labor-intensive nature of running each animal daily for an hour limited the number of mice per group; the study tested male mice only
Target Learners¶
- rodent models (male C57BL/6 mice) in neuroscience research on enrichment and cognition
Learning Goals¶
- higher-order cognition: categorization, perceptual invariance, cross-modal integration, long-term object and spatial memory, cognitive flexibility
Claims¶
- Oc Enrichment Enhances Long Term Object Recognition [+M]
- Oc Enrichment Enhances Object Location Memory [+M]
- Oc Cc Training Enhances Reversal Learning [+M]
- Oc Enrichment Enhances Object Category Recognition [+M]
- Oc Enrichment Cross Modal Object Recognition [+M]
- Oc Enrichment View Invariant Object Recognition [+M]
Related Designs¶
Examples¶
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Key Sources¶
- Gattas, S., Collett, H. A., Huff, A. E., Creighton, S. D., Weber, S. E., Buckhalter, S. S., Manning, S. A., Ryait, H. S., McNaughton, B. L., & Winters, B. D. (2022). A rodent obstacle course procedure controls delivery of enrichment and enhances complex cognition. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-022-00134-x
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
design |
id |
obstacle-course-enrichment-paradigm |
title |
Obstacle Course (OC): a controlled-delivery rodent enrichment paradigm with an exercise-matched Control Course |
description |
The Obstacle Course is an enrichment paradigm delivered outside animal housing that "enables systematic control over animal engagement with enrichment stimuli". |
status |
review |
generated |
by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-26 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — gattas-2022 |
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