
==== Front
bioRxiv
BIORXIV
bioRxiv
2692-8205
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

10.1101/2024.09.10.612214
preprint
1
Article
Ethograms reveal a fear conditioned visual cue to organize diverse behaviors
Williams David C.
Chu Amanda
Gordon Nicholas T.
DuBois Aleah M.
Qian Suhui
Valvo Genevieve
Shen Selena
Boyce Jacob B.
Fitzpatrick Anaise C.
Moaddab Mahsa
Russell Emma L.
Counsman Liliuokalani
McDannald Michael A. http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8525-1260

14 9 2024
2024.09.10.612214https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
http://biorxiv.org/lookup/doi/10.1101/2024.09.10.612214
nihpp-2024.09.10.612214.pdf
Abstract

Recognizing and responding to threat cues is essential to survival. In rats, freezing is the most common behavior measured. Previously we demonstrated a threat cue can organize diverse behaviors (Chu et al., 2024). However, the experimental design of Chu et al. (2024) was complex and the findings descriptive. Here, we gave female and male Long Evans rats simple paired or unpaired presentations of a light and foot shock (8 total) in a conditioned suppression setting, using a range of shock intensities (0.15, 0.25, 0.35 or 0.5 mA). We found that conditioned suppression was only observed at higher foot shock intensities (0.35 mA and 0.5 mA). We constructed comprehensive, temporal ethograms by scoring 22,272 frames of behavior for 12 mutually exclusive behavior categories in 200 ms intervals around cue presentation. A 0.5 mA and 0.35 mA shock-paired visual cue suppressed reward seeking, rearing and scaling, as well as light-directed rearing and light-directed scaling. The shock-paired visual paired cue further elicited locomotion and freezing. Linear discriminant analyses showed that ethogram data could accurately classify rats into paired and unpaired groups. Considering the complete ethogram data produced superior classification than considering subsets of behaviors. The results demonstrate diverse threat-elicited behaviors – in a simple Pavlovian fear conditioning design – containing sufficient information to distinguish the fear learning status of individual rats.
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