Gathering Self-Initiated Rat Behavioral Data to Characterize Post-Stroke Deficits.

Behavioral testing in rat models is frequently utilized for diverse purposes, including psychological, biomedical, and behavioral research. Many traditional approaches involve individual, one-on-one testing sessions between a single researcher and each animal in an experiment. This setup can be very time consuming for the researcher, and their presence may impact the behavioral data in unwanted ways. Additionally, traditional caging for rat research imposes a lack of enrichment, exercise, and socialization that would normally be typical for the species, and this context may also skew the results of behavioral data. Overcoming these limitations may be worthwhile for several research applications, including the study of acquired brain injury. Here, an example method is presented for automatically training and testing individual rat behavior in a colony cage without the presence of humans. Radio frequency identification can be utilized to tailor sessions to the individual rat. The validation of this system occurred in the example context of measuring skilled forelimb motor performance before and after stroke. Traditional characteristics of post-stroke behavioral impairments and novel measures enabled by the system are measured, including success rate, various aspects of pull force, bout analysis, initiation rate and patterns, session duration, and circadian patterns. These variables can be collected automatically with few limitations; though the apparatus removes experimental control of exposure, timing and practice, the validation produced reasonable consistency in these variables from animal to animal.

An apparatus for automatically training and collecting individualized behavioral data with socially housed rodents.

BACKGROUND: Conventional methods for individually housing, training, and testing rodents in behavioral assays can impose constraints that may limit some kinds of experimental external validity, preempt environmental enrichment, impose heavy experimenter time burdens that limit high-throughput data collection, and negatively impact animal welfare. NEW METHOD: To address these issues, we created a simple apparatus for automatically collecting individually identified data with rodents in social and/or enriched housing. RESULTS: We validated this "One Rat Turnstyle" (ORT) apparatus by utilizing it to automatically teach socially housed rats to individually press a lever without experimenter intervention or shaping. Results confirmed the feasibility and reliability of the apparatus, with almost all rats learning to move through the ORT and press a lever for sugar water by the end of the experiment. Rats had lower fecal cortisol when engaging with the ORT than with experimenter conducted daily behavioral training sessions. COMPARISON WITH EXISTING METHOD(S): The ORT is less electronically complex and more scalable compared to previous similar ideas. It requires only a 3d printer and the purchase of few parts. It is also designed to allow animals to quickly learn how to utilize it by minimizing passthrough time. CONCLUSIONS: Rats passed through the ORT both quickly and efficiently, self-administering reasonably timed behavioral sessions throughout the day. This success demonstrates that the ORT can enable the collection of both traditional and innovative, self-paced data in the context of socially housed animals, and may contribute to expanded, ecologically valid modelling.

The Influence of a Personal Values Intervention on Cold Pressor-Induced Distress Tolerance.

Research has demonstrated that values and acceptance interventions can increase distress tolerance, but the individual contribution of each remains unclear. The current study examined the isolated effect of a values intervention on immersion time in a cold pressor. Participants randomized to Values (n = 18) and Control (n = 14) conditions completed two cold pressor tasks, separated by a 30-min values or control intervention. Immersion time increased 51.06 s for participants in the Values condition and decreased by 10.79 s for those in the Control condition. Increases in self-reported pain and distress predicted decreases in immersion time for Control, but not Values, participants. The best-fitting model accounted for 39% of the variance in immersion time change. Results suggest that a brief isolated values exercise can be used to improve distress tolerance despite increased perceptions of pain and distress, such that values alone may be sufficient to facilitate openness to difficult experiences.

Opportunities for Audiologists to Use Patient-Centered Communication during Hearing Device Monitoring Encounters.

Patient-centered care incorporates patient's priorities, values, and goals. Audiologists can increase patient engagement when they use patient-centered principles during communication. Recent research, however, has revealed counseling gaps in audiology that could be detrimental to the intervention process. The present study sought to understand the extent patient-centered communication strategies were used during hearing device monitoring visits by analyzing audio recordings. Counseling portions of the appointments were transcribed using conversation analysis. Missed opportunities were observed, including not validating patients' emotional concerns, providing technical responses to emotional concerns, providing information without determining patient desire for the information, and not engaging the patient in a shared planning process. Training opportunities to enhance audiological services will be discussed.

Performance Feedback to Increase Use of Counseling Skills.

Counseling is a critical component of audiological care and when implemented purposefully can yield multiple benefits for patients. Professional guidelines indicate that counseling is within the scope of practice for audiologists, yet research has shown that audiologists feel unprepared and are not comfortable providing adjustment counseling. This may be due to inadequate counseling training in audiology graduate programs. To identify ways to address this counseling training gap, this study examined the use of performance feedback to increase counseling skills among audiology graduate students. In this study, participants ( n = 5) were recorded during clinical session encounters, and recordings were coded for time spent counseling. A licensed clinical psychologist reviewed the recordings and provided individual performance feedback to participants over the course of the study. Time spent counseling increased by the end of the study, although improvement varied across participants. Results suggest that performance feedback can be used as a method to increase counseling skills in audiology students. However, factors, such as participant motivation, feedback timing, and prerequisite counseling skills, may influence response to feedback. More research is needed on ways to maximize gains from feedback, as well as other methods to improve counseling skills in audiology students.