Sex differences in serial pattern learning in mice

Kundey, Shannon M. A.; Bajracharya, Aahana; Boettger‐Tong, Holly; Fountain, Stephen B.; Rowan, James D.

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103958

Cited by 8 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…When the reward-driven paradigms were used, the males performed better than the females [ 19 , 20 ]. However, contradictory results were reported with increased task complexity and/or difficulty levels [ 21 , 22 ]. The existing evidences indicate that the sex differences are likely to be task-specific.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in learning and performing the Go/NoGo tasks

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2023

Biol Sex Differ

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Background The quality of learning and post-learning performances is critical for daily life. The behavioral flexibility is equally important for adapting the changing circumstances. The learning process requires repeated practices, which enhances prompt and proper behavioral responses, in turn, which promotes habits formation as well. Despite the well-documented sex differences in learning and performances, contradictory results were reported. A possible cause might be a systematic analysis due to specific research interests, regardless of the continuity of natural acquisition process. Here, we investigate the potential sex differences in learning, performances and adjustments of habited behaviors with regular and reversal Go/NoGo tasks. Methods Both male and female Sprague-Dawley rats were used in this study. All rats were trained for a regular rodent Go/NoGo task and a subset of rats were trained for a reversal rodent Go/NoGo task, both with strict elimination criteria. The behavioral performance data were stored in PC for off-line analysis. Multiple behavioral indices were analyzed for both passed and retired rats. Results The ability of learning the regular the reversal Go/NoGo tasks was similar for both male and female rats, however, the female rats took longer time to master the task principles in later stages for both tasks. In the regular Go/NoGo task, the female rats spent more time on completing the trial in performance optimization phases, which implied female rats were more cautious than male rats. Along with the progression of training, both male and female rats developed Go-preference strategies to perform the regular Go/NoGo task, which induced failure to meet the setting success criteria. The retired male rats exhibited shorter RTs and MTs than the retired female rats after developing Go-preference. Moreover, the time needed to complete the Go trials was significantly prolonged for male rats in the reversal Go/NoGo task. Conclusions Overall, we conclude that distinctive strategies were employed in performing Go/NoGo tasks for both male and female rats. Male rats required less time to stabilize the performance in behavioral optimization phase. In addition, male rats were more accurate in estimating time elapsing. In contrast, female rats took more cautious considerations in performing the task, through which minimal influences were manifested in the reversal version of task.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex differences in learning and performing the Go/NoGo tasks

Zhang

Wang

et al. 2023

Biol Sex Differ

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“…Learning of serial stimulus patterns has also been observed in many other groups of animals (Sun & Giles, 2001;Rowan et al, 2001;Fountain, 2008;Rowan, Fountain & Kundey, 2021). Such learning seems similar to those seen in humans (Sands & Wright, 1982;Terrace & McGonigle, 1994;Fountain, 2006), being found in rodents (Fountain, 1990;Murphy, Mondragón & Murphy, 2008;Kundey et al, 2019;Caglayan, Stumpenhorst & Winter, 2021), cetaceans (Mercado et al, 2000) and pigeons (Blaisdell & Cook, 2005;Garlick, Fountain & Blaisdell, 2017), for instance.…”

Section: Serial Stimulus Patternsupporting

confidence: 54%

Neurofisiologia da predição baseada em memórias sobre regularidades passadas

Silva¹

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“…However, while literature reports indicate large and reliable male advantages for rats in radial-maze and water-maze protocols ( Jonasson, 2005 ), experimental findings have remained contradictory in laboratory mice ( Frick et al, 1999 ; Võikar et al, 2001 ; Hendershott et al, 2016 ). For example, evidence suggests differential performance by male and female mice in spatial navigation tasks ( Kundey et al, 2019 ) and object recognition tasks ( Frick and Gresack, 2003 ). In line with these observations, experimental studies reported poorer performance in the water maze combined with increased serum corticosterone levels in females ( Beiko et al, 2004 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Appetitively motivated tasks in the IntelliCage reveal a higher motivational cost of spatial learning in male than female mice

Nigri,

Bramati,

Steiner

et al. 2024

Front. Behav. Neurosci.

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The IntelliCage (IC) permits the assessment of the behavior and learning abilities of mice in a social home cage context. To overcome water deprivation as an aversive driver of learning, we developed protocols in which spatial learning is motivated appetitively by the preference of mice for sweetened over plain water. While plain water is available at all times, only correct task responses give access to sweetened water rewards. Under these conditions, C57BL/6J mice successfully mastered a corner preference task with the reversal and also learned a more difficult time-place task with reversal. However, the rate of responding to sweetened water decreased strongly with increasing task difficulty, indicating that learning challenges and reduced success in obtaining rewards decreased the motivation of the animals to seek sweetened water. While C57BL/6J mice of both sexes showed similar initial taste preferences and learned similarly well in simple learning tasks, the rate of responding to sweetened water and performance dropped more rapidly in male than in female mice in response to increasing learning challenges. Taken together, our data indicate that male mice can have a disadvantage relative to females in mastering difficult, appetitively motivated learning tasks, likely due to sex differences in value-based decision-making.

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Sex differences in serial pattern learning in mice

Cited by 8 publications

References 13 publications

Sex differences in learning and performing the Go/NoGo tasks

Sex differences in learning and performing the Go/NoGo tasks

Neurofisiologia da predição baseada em memórias sobre regularidades passadas

Appetitively motivated tasks in the IntelliCage reveal a higher motivational cost of spatial learning in male than female mice

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