Scopolamine increases perseveration in mice subjected to the detour test

Assessment of Problem‐Solving Skills and Inhibitory Control in Mice Using Water Escape Detour Test

“…An optional modification is that, on the second day, you can apply the additional seventh training session to use the escape platform without the barrier. This additional session is performed immediately before treatment (Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019), but is not necessary. This will make the effect of the tested drug less dependent on the ability to retrieve information from long-term memory, but it will also increase the tendency to reach the target through the transparent barrier because of recent memories.…”

“…Although many different barriers are possible, the most commonly used are V-shaped because these were popularized by researchers studying dogs (Pongrácz et al, 2008;Pongrácz et al, 2001;Smith & Litchfield, 2010). Detour tasks are usually applied to compare different species (Frank & Frank, 1982;Marshall-Pescini, Viranyi, & Range, 2015;Vlamings, Hare, & Call, 2010), to study developmental changes in problem-solving skills (Diamond & Gilbert, 1989;Lockman, 1984), and to model cognitive deficits in pharmacological experiments relevant to aging (Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019;Uslaner et al, 2013), schizophrenia, and drug abuse (Cannon et al, 2013;Jentsch et al, 2000).…”

“…However, despite the importance of emotional intelligence, its biological mechanism is still not well understood. For this reason, we have developed a rodent detour task which requires an animal to reach a highly desired object placed directly behind a transparent barrier that blocks the direct route to the target (Juszczak & Miller, 2016;Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019). This apparently simple task is highly dependent on the emotional control that is necessary to inhibit prepotent and counterproductive responses driven by the sight of a desired object.…”

“…Therefore, tasks employing transparent barriers are especially useful for testing problem-solving skills requiring emotional control (Juszczak & Miller, 2016). Furthermore, they also allow for identification of an impairment termed perseveration (Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019). Such a maladaptive reaction to a challenging situation is characterized by the difficulty in terminating an unsuccessful response, leading to persistent repetition of inappropriate behavior (Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019).…”

“…Furthermore, they also allow for identification of an impairment termed perseveration (Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019). Such a maladaptive reaction to a challenging situation is characterized by the difficulty in terminating an unsuccessful response, leading to persistent repetition of inappropriate behavior (Juszczak & Stryjek, 2019). This issue is especially important because propensity for perseveration contributes to cognitive dysfunction observed in schizophrenia (Lanser, Berger, Ellenbroek, Cools, & Zitman, 2002), drug abuse (Ersche, Roiser, Robbins, & Sahakian, 2008;Lane, Cherek, Tcheremissine, Steinberg, & Sharon, 2007;Woicik et al, 2011), and aging (Head, Kennedy, Rodrigue, & Raz, 2009;Ridderinkhof, Span, & van der Molen, 2002).…”