Acoustic startle response test

LA Lucas Albrechet-Souza
CS Connor L. Schratz
NG Nicholas W. Gilpin
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At day 2 after exposure to PO stress, rats were tested for acoustic startle reactivity. Rats were placed in a Plexiglas tube attached to an accelerometer inside a dark, soundproof chamber (SR-Lab, San Diego Instruments, CA) and allowed to acclimate for 5 min (75-dB background noise) before the test session [35]. This background white noise was present throughout the session. The chamber and Plexiglas tube were cleaned with Quatricide between each animal. Before testing, an S-R calibrator tube was used to calibrate the chambers. The test session consisted of 30 trials with startle stimuli of three different decibel levels: a 750-ms burst of 95 dB, 105 dB, or 115 dB white noise was randomly presented 10 times each, separated by a 30-s fixed inter-trial interval. The maximum startle response (Vmax, arbitrary units) was recorded during the first 100 ms of each trial.

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