Obesity, neurodegenerative diseases, and injury can all lead to cognitive deficits, which can be improved clinically with the implementation of cognitive rehabilitation. Due to a lack of effective cognitive rehabilitation tools in mice, we re-designed a cognitive task utilized to detect problem-solving deficits, to develop a cognitive rehabilitation paradigm for mice. In this study, we developed a modified the Puzzle Box task by exposing B6 mice to a variety of obstacles and assessing the escape latencies. We then combined obstacles in order to create a “complex obstacle” for the problem-solving task. We determined that our task was reproducible in different cohorts of mice. Furthermore, with repetition the mice display an improvement in the performance, evident by a shorter escape latency and the ability to maintain this improvement in performance, indicative of long-term memory. Given that this approach is new, we validated whether this task could successfully detect deficits in a mouse model of cognitive impairment, the high-fat diet mouse. We demonstrate that high-fat diet mice have longer escape latencies when exposed to the complex obstacle compared to standard diet control mice. Taken together, these data suggest that the Puzzle Box is a valid task for cognitive rehabilitation in mice.

肥胖、神经退行性疾病和损伤都会导致认知缺陷，这些缺陷可以通过实施认知康复在临床上得到改善。由于小鼠缺乏有效的认知康复工具，我们重新设计了一项用于检测问题解决缺陷的认知任务，以开发小鼠的认知康复范式。在这项研究中，我们通过将 B6 小鼠暴露于各种障碍物并评估逃逸延迟来开发改进的拼图盒任务。然后我们将障碍组合起来，为解决问题的任务创造一个“复杂的障碍”。我们确定我们的任务在不同的小鼠队列中是可重复的。此外，通过重复，小鼠的表现有所改善，更短的逃逸延迟和保持这种性能改进的能力很明显，表明长期记忆。鉴于这种方法是新的，我们验证了这项任务是否可以成功检测到认知障碍小鼠模型（高脂肪饮食小鼠）的缺陷。我们证明，与标准饮食控制小鼠相比，高脂肪饮食小鼠在暴露于复杂障碍时具有更长的逃逸潜伏期。综上所述，这些数据表明 Puzzle Box 是小鼠认知康复的有效任务。我们证明，与标准饮食控制小鼠相比，高脂肪饮食小鼠在暴露于复杂障碍时具有更长的逃逸潜伏期。综上所述，这些数据表明 Puzzle Box 是小鼠认知康复的有效任务。我们证明，与标准饮食控制小鼠相比，高脂肪饮食小鼠在暴露于复杂障碍时具有更长的逃逸潜伏期。综上所述，这些数据表明 Puzzle Box 是小鼠认知康复的有效任务。