Variations in radial maze performance under different levels of food and water deprivation

Abstract

Four groups of rats were tested on an eight-arm radial maze under a free-choice procedure. The subjects were maintained at either 80% or 100% of their preexperimental free-feeding weights through restricted access to either food or water. Water-deprived subjects received water in the maze; food-deprived subjects received food. Water-deprived subjects learned the task faster than food-deprived subjects. The four groups developed different response patterns. These were measured by the mean transition size, the average angular distance (in 45°units) between consecutively chosen arms. Rats foraging for food and water developed different search strategies, with water-deprived subjects exhibiting lower mean transition sizes. When the subjects were given three consecutive trials, 2 min apart, choice accuracy declined across trials, although performance on the last two trials improved across days. The groups' mean transition sizes remained different, and were constant over trials and days. Thus, the test procedures differentially affected choice accuracy and response patterning.

Effects of varying trial distribution, intra- and extramaze cues, and amount of reward on proactive interference in the radial maze

“…This tendency to avoid the final arm locations from a prior trial is further evidence against an end-of-trial "resetting" process in spatial working memory. Dale and Roberts (1986) replicated these effects when arms were baited with water as well as with food pellets. Roberts and Dale (1981) proposed that massing trials causes rats to become less certain about whether they last visited an arm during the current or previous trial.…”

Intratrial proactive interference in rats’ serial alternation performance in the radial maze

“…Second, and more importantly, the results from Experiment 2 indicated that such an effect seems to reflect confusion about which arm locations rats had been forced to visit most recently. Thus, intratrial PI in rats' spatial working memory in this study may be explained by the same temporal discrimination process that was considered to cause intertrial PI in rats' spatial working memory in the T-maze (Grant, 1981) or radial maze (Cohen et aI., 1994;Dale & Roberts, 1986;Roberts & Dale, 1981).…”

“…Grant (1981, Experiment 2), for example, found that decreasing the intertrial interval (ITI) between successive trials in the delayed alternation task from 60 or 30 sec to 0 sec generated steeper retention gradients in the second trial as the RI was increased from 0 to 40 sec. Rats also make more reentries during their final choices in the radial maze on later trials within a session even with ITIs as long as 240 sec (Dale & Roberts, 1986;Roberts & Dale, 1981). In these latter studies, rats tended to avoid the last four selected arm locations ofa previous trial during their first four initial choices on a current trial, another indication that memories from a preceding trial affect subsequent performance.…”

“…Intertrial PI has been induced by massing trials in the delayed alternation (Grant, 1981) and radial maze tasks (Dale & Roberts, 1986;Roberts & Dale, 1981). Grant (1981, Experiment 2), for example, found that decreasing the intertrial interval (ITI) between successive trials in the delayed alternation task from 60 or 30 sec to 0 sec generated steeper retention gradients in the second trial as the RI was increased from 0 to 40 sec.…”

Neurobehavioral effects of concurrent exposure to cesium-137 and paraquat during neonatal development in mice

“…This allows to facilitate the effectiveness of the visual cues. The mice had free access to water but were deprived food 12 h before the initial trial in order to increase their motivation for the task (Dale and Roberts, 1986). The start of each trial began with the mouse placed in the central platform facing the same arm.…”