Ontogeny of spatial navigation in rats: A role for response requirements?

Carman, Heidi M.; Mactutus, Charles F.

doi:10.1037/0735-7044.115.4.870

Cited by 48 publications

(72 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…These results are congruent with previous data showing a late development of spatial learning in rats (Carman & Mactutus, 2001;Kraemer & Randall, 1995;Rudy & Paylor, 1988;Rudy et al, 1987). Our procedure was designed in order to minimize fatigue, including a spaced distribution of trials as proposed by Kraemer and Randall (1995).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

“…This fact may have favored learning in the younger group, as can be seen in the last two trials. Spatial learning at this age has been reported employing a procedure adapted to the pups requirements, such as a reduced size of the pool (Carman & Mactutus, 2001;Carman et al, 2002). However, using the present behavioral procedure the differences in latencies to locate the platform between both age groups were evident.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

“…A spaced learning procedure was applied for minimizing fatigue, as proposed by Kraemer and Randall (1995). However, as it has been shown that reducing the task requirements may allow spatial learning in preweanlings (Carman & Mactutus, 2001;Carman, Booze, & Mactutus, 2002), a large circular pool was used in order to increase the difficulty of the task. Each subject received 10 blocks of training, applied in two daily sessions, morning and afternoon, during 5 consecutive days.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Significant acquisition deficits have been reported in preweaning rats younger than 20 days of age. These deficits range from a complete failure to express spatial learning (Rudy & Paylor, 1988;Rudy, Staedler-Morris, & Albert, 1987;Schenk, 1985) to inferior performance relative to adults (Carman & Mactutus, 2001;Kraemer & Randall, 1995) depending on the procedure requirements. Thus, applying the conventional spatial learning task to 17-19 day old rats results in a learning failure due to incomplete brain maturation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Early learning failure impairs adult learning in rats

et al. 2005

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Early life experiences may affect adult learning ability. In two experiments we tested the effect of early learning failure on adult performance in Wistar rats. In the first experiment 17-day-old rats (PN17), but not 25-day-old rats (PN25), trained in a hidden platform water maze task showed deficits in tone-shock avoidance learning when they were 3-months-old. The second experiment, which included random-platform and non-platform control groups, confirmed the effect of early (PN18) spatial learning failure on adult avoidance learning. However, postweaning training (PN25) without platform also tended to induce adult learning deficits as long as the adult task difficulty was increased. The older non-platform group did not differ from the impaired group which received early training in a fixed hidden platform task. The results are discussed in terms of the relevance of early learning outcome and developmental stage on adult general learning deficits which may be related to the learned helplessness phenomenon and developmental neural plasticity. ß 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 46: 340-349, 2005.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 88%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 66%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Early learning failure impairs adult learning in rats

et al. 2005

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“…The dependent variables included swim speed, quadrant preference, i.e., the relative distribution of swimming time in each of the quadrants, and platform crossing, i.e., the number of crossings through the conceptual location of the platform in each of the quadrants, were included as dependent variables. Both measures were analyzed taking the quadrant containing the prior target platform into account relative to the opposite quadrant, to reflect the accuracy with which the animals are able to precisely locate the previous platform location (discrimination variable) [29,31]. In addition, the centroid [9] is reported, which is a proximity index that records the mean distance between the animal and the platform location computed 18x/sec throughout the trial duration.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of chronic adult dietary restriction on spatial learning in the aged F344×BN hybrid F1 rat

Fitting¹,

Booze²,

Gilbert³

et al. 2008

Physiology & Behavior

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Dietary restriction (DR) has been shown to increase life span and reduce disease incidence across a variety of species. Recent research suggests that chronic adult DR may also alter age-related cognitive decline. The purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to examine the potential deficits in spatial learning ability in the aged F344 X BN hybrid F1 rat with specific attention to the contributory effects of motoric impairments and (2) to determine the influence of chronic adult DR on any such impairments. The Morris water maze (MWM) task was employed with a 1.8 m diameter tank, 10 cm 2 escape platform, 28°C water, and an automated collapsing central starting platform. Spatial learning impairments in the aged rats were evident on all dependent measures during training and the probe test. Motoric function, as reflected in measures of strength and locomotion demonstrated profound age-related performance impairments that were attenuated by chronic adult DR. The present data also replicate previous reports, indicating that DR attenuates the age-related impairments of performance in the MWM as indexed by the latency measure in acquisition, but critically was dissociated from any DR effect on measures of preference and, more critically, accuracy in the probe test. Collectively, the most parsimonious interpretation of DR effects on MWM performance would appear to be the preservation of motoric, and not cognitive, function. KeywordsCognition; Motoric function; Morris water maze One of the more disconcerting age-related changes across a variety of species is a decline in learning and memory. Aging rodents have been shown to be a promising animal model for studying memory deficits. In particular, tasks of spatial memory have been employed [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] with clearly demonstrated deficits in aged rats as a model associated with aging humans [9][10][11]. Deficits that accompany the decline of spatial learning and memory in aged rats include a loss of visual acuity [12], thermoregulatory control [3], impairments in sensorimotor behavior [6,8,13], and the development of lesions and diseases [14]. These

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Overview of Behavioral Teratology

2005

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The discipline of behavioral teratology is based on the study of behavior as a powerful tool to identify and disentangle noxious effects of compounds known or suspected to be potentially neurotoxic early during development. Indeed, because behavior is the ultimate output of the brain, behavioral assessments can provide critical information on the noxious actions exerted by selected chemicals-information which is different from, and complementary to, the information provided by neurochemical, cellular, and histological evaluations. In particular, behavioral assessments allow one to investigate the integrity of a number of brain processes, helping to identify selected structural and/or functional alterations. A large number of behavioral protocols are available which are rapid, simple, quantitative, easily replicable, and reliable as indices of brain dysfunction. This unit provides an overview of the field of behavioral teratology.

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Ontogeny of spatial navigation in rats: A role for response requirements?

Cited by 48 publications

References 27 publications

Early learning failure impairs adult learning in rats

Early learning failure impairs adult learning in rats

Effects of chronic adult dietary restriction on spatial learning in the aged F344×BN hybrid F1 rat

Overview of Behavioral Teratology

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