does cognitive performance vary with the time of day?

[anne-urai]

Idea

Circadian rhythms can have a big impact on behavior. Mice in IBL are trained at different times of the day. In some institutions, animals are trained on a strict schedule, whereas in others the training is more variable. Different institutions also have different light cycles, and may train animals predominantly in the morning or evening.

Specific ideas

• Do mice that are trained at fixed daily times learn the task faster, or slower than animals that train at different times of the day?
• Does behavioral performance peak at a specific time of the day?
• How do these results differ between institutions with a normal, vs. a reverse light cycle?

Further reading

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13554-y

[anne-urai]

A psychology Masters student in Leiden looked at the public IBL data to see if mice learn differently on an inverted or non-inverted light cycle. Unfortunately the results were unconclusive, but may still be of interest: https://github.com/Felicewulfse/int_brain_lab