Those cheating rats: male and female rats use odor trails in a water-escape “working memory” task

Simultaneous Evaluation of Spatial Working Memory and Motivation by the Allocentric Place Discrimination Task in the Water Maze in Rats

“…One is the visible discrimination learning task [7][8][9]34] and the other is the T-maze-type place discrimination task [16][17][18][19][20]. The allocentric place discrimination task, however, differs from above two tasks in some important points.…”

“…In some of these cases the platforms used were clearly different in appearance, and rats learned the differences in appearance of the platforms and thus selected the solid one. In other cases, the working memory was evaluated in the T-maze-type place discrimination task, but rats could solve the task using odors and/or egocentric navigation (i.e., rats might select the direction, left or right by themselves) [16,[18][19][20]. Therefore, rats learned how to go, not where they were and where to go, in the T-mazetype place discrimination task.…”

Chronic MPTP treatment produces hyperactivity in male mice which is not alleviated by concurrent trehalose treatment

“…Each mouse was allowed a maximum of 120 s to locate the platform after which it was allowed to remain on the platform for 20 s before being placed into a holding cage containing an absorbent towel until the next trial. If the mouse did not locate the platform within the allotted time, it was placed onto the platform for 20 s. During the inter-trial interval, the water was lightly stirred to dissipate potential odor trails [34]. After the three daily trials, the mouse was returned to its home cage.…”

Relationship Between Learning and Memory Deficits and Arp2 Expression in the Hippocampus in Rats with Traumatic Brain Injury

“…Four hours later, the other training session started. Between two successive trials, the water was stirred in order to erase olfactory traces of the previous swim pattern (26,33). The platform was placed in the same location throughout the hidden platform training.…”