A number of investigators have used mice for subjects to explore sensory evoked potentials recorded from mouse cortex. These studies typically use auditory, visual or somatosensory stimuli and have primarily focused on early component responses (e.g. < 100msec) (see Mazzucchelli et al., 1995; Porciatti et al., 1999; Tebano et al., 1999; Frenkel et al., 2000; Troncoso et al., 2000; Metzger et al., 2007). More recent investigations extend that literature by providing evidence to suggest that several late ERP components, including a late positivity, can be obtained from mice that differ in their latencies, amplitudes, polarities and morphology depending on the recording site, and stimulus characteristics (see Ehlers & Somes 2002; Siegel et al., 2003; Umbricht et al., 2005). Like most ERP studies using rodents as subjects a “passive” oddball ERP paradigm has been used to generate ERPs in mice. The advantages of a passive paradigm are that it can be administered to human and other animal subjects without extensive prior training, and it does not require the subject to respond to the stimuli. Such paradigms have been particularly important in
