Concurrent object-discrimination learning in rats

Santucci, Anthony C.; Treichler, F. Robert

doi:10.3758/bf03205289

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…As has been previously demonstrated for other types of discrimination learning tasks (P. D. Spear & Braun 1969; Christensen & Pribram 1979; Santucci & Treichler 1985), we propose that more extensive cocaine‐induced deficits would have been observed if the requirements of the discrimination task were made more difficult by either increasing the number of problems to be learned, using harder‐to‐discriminate problems, employing more stringent learning criteria (Treichler 1984; Santucci & Treichler 1990), employing a probabilistic discrimination paradigm (Oscar‐Berman & Sahakian 1976; Ersche et al. 2008) or requiring subjects to alter their response strategies by selecting a previously non‐reinforced alternative (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Residual performance impairments in adult rats trained on an object discrimination task subsequent to cocaine administration during adolescence

Santucci

Rabidou

2010

Addiction Biology

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The present study was conducted to determine whether cognitive impairments in adult rats treated with cocaine during adolescence demonstrated in previous investigations extend to tests of object discrimination learning. Accordingly, 30-day-old male Long-Evans rats were injected subcutaneously with either 10 or 20 mg/kg cocaine or received control injections of saline for 7-8 consecutive days. An extended abstinence period was then introduced (mean = 70.7 ± 9.8 days) before subjects, who were now young adults (mean = 106.3 ± 10.2 days old), were assessed for acquisition of a two-choice object discrimination task. Using a correctional learning procedure conducted in a water maze, subjects were trained (eight trials per day for 10 days) to approach one of two multi-dimentional 'junk' objects. Although all animals acquired the discrimination to a reasonable extent, cocaine-treated subjects exhibited lower percentages of correct choices over the course of training (10 mg/kg = 59.6 ± 7.2% and 20 mg/kg = 59.4 ± 4.9%) relative to the saline control group (67.5 ± 4.9%). Further analyses revealed that saline-treated subjects acquired proficient discrimination performance earlier during the course of training, achieving an approximate 72% performance rate after only 3 days of training. This was in contrast to the two cocaine-treated groups needing 7 days of training to achieve comparable levels of performance. In addition, saline-treated subjects required significantly fewer trials (20.8 ± 8.9) than either cocaine-treated group (10 mg/kg = 52.2 ± 11.9 and 20 mg/kg = 63.3 ± 8.7) to reach an 87.5% correct response criterion (i.e. 7-correct-out-of-8-consecutive-trials) and performed at a higher above-chance level (13.5%) than either cocaine-treated group (3.6% and 5.3% for the 10 and 20 mg/kg cocaine groups, respectively). These findings demonstrate the existence of cognitive impairments in adulthood subsequent to cocaine exposure during adolescence despite a prolonged drug-free interval. Speculation regarding the neurobiological basis for this effect, especially with regard to alterations to prefrontal circuitry, is provided.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 53%

Residual performance impairments in adult rats trained on an object discrimination task subsequent to cocaine administration during adolescence

Santucci

Rabidou

2010

Addiction Biology

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“…Each task requires the acquisition, retention, and expression of either qualitatively or quantitatively different kinds of information, and for this reason, they have been useful in dissociating the mnemonic effects of damage to different brain structures in monkeys (Squire, 1992). However, because object-memory tasks have only recently been developed for rats (e.g., Mumby et al, 1991;Mumby, Pinel, & Wood, 1990;Rothblat & Hayes, 1987;Santucci & Treichler, 1990;Wible, Shiber, & Olton, 1992), it is not yet clear whether similar dissociations occur in rats.…”

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confidence: 99%

Memory deficits following lesions of hippocampus or amygdala in rat: Assessment by an object-memory test battery

et al. 1995

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We tested rats with bilateral lesions of the hippocampus or the amygdala on a battery of five object-memory tasks, which resemble those that have been used in the study of amnesia in humans and monkeys: (1) object discrimination, (2) discrimination reversal, (3) eight-pair concurrent object discrimination, (4) nonrecurring-items delayed nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS) with retention delays of 4, 15, 30, 60, and 120 sec and with lists of three, five, and seven samples, and (5) order discrimination. All testing was postsurgery. Relative to control rats, the rats with hippocampal lesions required more trials to master the object discrimination and the concurrent object discrimination. Rats with hippocampal lesions required about as many trials as did control rats to master DNMS at the 4sec delay and displayed only mild deficits at the longest (120-sec) delay. Rats with amygdalar lesions required more trials to master the concurrent object discriminations than did controls, but significantly fewer than did rats with hippocampal lesions. They required more trials than did controls to master DNMS with a 4-sec delay; however, after they had done so, they continued to perform normally as the delay was increased. Neither lesion produced deficits on discrimination reversal, D NMS with lists, or order discrimination. While these findings demonstrate that the mnemonic effects of hippocampal and amygdalar lesions can be dissociated using a battery of object-memory tasks, they also suggest a limited role for these two structures in many object-memory abilities.Studies of amnesia in monkeys typically involve memory tasks that require the monkeys to remember information about objects; for example, two-choice object discrimination, mUltiple-pair concurrent object discrimination, and nonrecurring-items delayed matching-or nonmatching-to-sample (DNMS). Similar object-memory tasks have been used to assess the memory deficits of human amnesics with results virtually identical to those in monkeys with similar brain damage (Aggleton, Nicol,

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Concurrent recall of serially learned visual discrimination problems in dwarf goats (Capra hircus)

Langbein

Siebert

Nuernberg

2008

Behavioural Processes

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Concurrent object-discrimination learning in rats

Cited by 4 publications

References 18 publications

Residual performance impairments in adult rats trained on an object discrimination task subsequent to cocaine administration during adolescence

Residual performance impairments in adult rats trained on an object discrimination task subsequent to cocaine administration during adolescence

Memory deficits following lesions of hippocampus or amygdala in rat: Assessment by an object-memory test battery

Concurrent recall of serially learned visual discrimination problems in dwarf goats (Capra hircus)

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