The effect of task dimensionality on discrimination learning and transfer of training in the aged.
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The theoretical premise that the acquisition and storage of information occurs through the strengthening of synaptic connections has contributed to the popularity of long-term potentiation (LTP) as a candidate neural mechanism for associative learning. However, whether experimentally induced LTP facilitates, disrupts, or has no effect on subsequent learning is a controversial issue. The present study examined the reported facilitative effect of LTP within hippocampal perforant path-dentate gyrus synapses on subsequent discriminative conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response. In addition, the effect of LTP on subsequent reversal learning of the initial discrimination was examined. LTP did not significantly affect acquisition of the initial discriminative response or subsequent reversal learning. Furthermore, the magnitude of LTP could not be used to predict the rate of acquisition of either task. The failure to find an effect of LTP on classical conditioning of the rabbit nictitating membrane response mirrors the recent failures to replicate the disruptive effect of LTP on spatial learning in the rat. Thus, the potential contribution of an LTP-like mechanism to associative learning remains equivocal.
Three experiments assessed the effect of entorhinal cortex lesions on olfactory learning and memory using a successive-cue olfactory discrimination paradigm. In contrast to the results of other studies that used a simultaneous-cue paradigm, lesions of the entorhinal cortex facilitated rats' acquisition of individual odor discrimination problems, with no impairment in memory for the individual odors across both short (24-hr) and long (65-day) retention intervals and despite limited training. When considered together with previous observations of facilitation or impairment in learning after damage to the hippocampal system, the present data suggest that the hippocampus is preferentially involved in encoding relations among multiple stimuli. By this account, facilitation of performance is due to an interaction between hippocampal system dysfunction and task conditions that hinder direct comparisons among cues.
Rats with X-irradiation-produced degranulation of the hippocampal dentate gyrus were trained in the acquisition and reversal of simultaneous visual and tactile discriminations in a T-maze. These experiments employed the same treatment, apparatus, and procedure but varied in task difficulty. In the brightness and roughness discriminations, the irradiated rats were not handicapped in acquiring or reversing discriminations of low or low-moderate task difficulty. However, these rats were handicapped in acquiring and reversing discriminations of moderate and high task difficulty. In a Black/White discrimination, in which the stimuli were restricted to the goal-arm walls, the irradiated rats were handicapped in the acquisition (low task difficulty) and reversal (moderate task difficulty) phases of the task. These results suggest that the irradiated rats were not handicapped when the noticeability of the stimuli was high, irrespective of modality used, but were handicapped when the noticeability of the stimuli was low. In addition, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that rats with hippocampal damage are inattentive due to hyperactivity.
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