Feb 16, 2025
- 1Vall d'Hebron Research Institute;
- 2Caltech
Protocol Citation: Marina Lorente Picón, Núria Peñuelas, Ariadna Laguna, Miquel Vila, Chelsie Steele, Yujie Fan 2025. Beam Crossing. protocols.io https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.n92ldr2jxg5b/v1
License: This is an open access protocol distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
Protocol status: Working
We use this protocol and it's working
Created: January 07, 2025
Last Modified: February 16, 2025
Protocol Integer ID: 117859
Funders Acknowledgements:
Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s
Grant ID: ASAP-020495
Abstract
Beam test for mice
Beam Crossing
Beam Crossing
Mice are placed at the beginning of an elevated horizontal plexiglass beam
bar covered on scotch tape to avoid limb slip (1m length – 2.5cm width- 0.5m
elevation). At the beginning of the beam we place a little lamp and at the end
of the beam we place a dark box to motivate the animal to go towards the dark
side.
Mice are allowed to explore the beam bar and receive four assisted trials to
cross it a week before the test. This is called the "training period"
The week after training, the beam crossing test starts and animals can traverse the entire length of the beam unassisted for three times. Each of the three trials are filmed for later analysis in BORIS software.
Clean the beam bar between animals.
Video Analysis
Video Analysis
For each video, the time it takes the animal to cross the beam is recorded, then the average time of the three trials is taken in BORIS Software (DOI: 10.1111/2041-210X.12584) for analysis.
The limb errors per video are also counted. An error is counted when, during a forward movement, a
limb (forelimb or hindlimb) slips through the beam. The average number of foot slips is then taken.