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PubMed1983

Sympathetic sprouting and recovery of a spatial behavior.

After lesions of the medial septum, peripheral sympathetic fibers from the superior cervical ganglion appear in the hippocampal formation. To assess the functional significance of this neuronal rearrangement, we analyzed behavior on a spatial/memory task sensitive to hippocampal dysfunction, the radial eight-arm maze. The procedure allowed evaluation of both working and reference memory. All rats were able to master the task. Half of the rats then underwent either medial septal lesions and ganglionectomy or sham neurosurgery and ganglionectomy, and the other half underwent medial septal lesions or sham neurosurgery followed by ganglionectomy after further behavioral testing. Medial septal lesions in both groups disrupted taks performance with recovery of performance occurring with time. However, the rate of recovery was significantly enhanced in rats which had septal lesions and ganglionectomies simultaneously. Removal of the ganglion after recovery produced no effects on maze performance. Our results suggest that sympathetic ingrowth retards recovery processes.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

[Improvement in spontaneous and acquired spatial behaviors following lesions of septal dopaminergic afferents in mice: possible relations with hippocampal cholinergic activity].

Recent evidence from pharmacological studies support the view that dopaminergic afferents to the septal complex which originate from the mesencephalic A10 area, exert a tonic inhibitory control over the activity of the septal-hippocampal cholinergic neurons. Accordingly one could predict that the release from such an inhibition by lesion of the septal dopaminergic terminals might improve performance in tasks known to be related to hippocampal cholinergic activity. In order to test this hypothesis mice of the C57BL/6 strain received a bilateral injection of 6-hydroxydopamine in the lateral septal nucleus; they were compared to subjects receiving saline and to unoperated control mice in tests performed in a T-maze: spontaneous alternation, acquisition and reversal of spatial discrimination. In all tasks, performance of experimental subjects was improved relative to controls. However, subsequent experiments showed that this improvement was not observed when visual (light/dark) discrimination was used. Finally, 6-hydroxydopamine injected mice exhibited a substantial increase in hippocampal sodium-dependent high affinity choline uptake (+ 16.7%). These results are discussed in relation to the three main theories concerning the role of the septo-hippocampal complex and cholinergic system in the control of behavior (i.e. Pavlovian internal inhibition, spatial mapping and working memory). Only the theory of spatial cognition seems to account for our present findings.

Afferent Pathways↗
PubMed2006

Neuronal implementation of hippocampal-mediated spatial behavior: a comparative evolutionary perspective.

The hippocampal formation (HF) of mammals and birds plays a strikingly similar role in the representation of space. This evolutionarily conserved property, however, belies the contrasting spatial ecology of animals such as rats and homing pigeons, differing spatial ecologies that should have promoted the evolution of group-specific adaptations to the HF representation of space. However, the spatial response properties of pigeon and rat HF neurons reveal surprising similarity in the contribution of position, direction, and trajectory toward explaining spatial variation in firing rate. By contrast, the asymmetrical distribution of neuronal response properties in the left and right HF of homing pigeons, but not rats, indicates a difference in network organization. The authors propose that hippocampal evolution may be characterized by inertia with respect to changes in the basic spatial elements that determine the response properties of neurons but considerable plasticity in how the neuronal response elements are organized into functional networks.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Multivariate analysis of putative measures of activity, exploration, emotionality, and spatial behavior in the hooded rat (Rattus norvegicus).

Hooded rats were tested in six situations representing the variables of activity, exploration, emotionality, and spatial preference, detection of change, and learning. The activity, exploration, and emotionality variables and spatial variables were analyzed in separate multivariate analyses, followed by an analysis of the entire set. The first of these resulted in four components: activity, exploration and emotionality, reactivity to handling, and autonomic reactivity (defecation). Four components, defined by the following variables, emerged from the spatial analysis: (a) the tendency to circle, circling direction, and spatial learning; (b) heading error in spatial learning and reversal and open-field directional preference; (c) spatial reversal and direction of turn to escape restraint; and (d) detection of change in spatial arrangement and directional preference in the detection task. The final analysis investigated relations between the activity, exploration, and emotionality variables and the spatial variables, finding only two. The clear dimensionality of these behavioral repertoires emphasizes how important it is to recognize the distinctions among them.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Prenatal gonadal steroids affect adult spatial behavior, CA1 and CA3 pyramidal cell morphology in rats.

The present study assessed whether prenatal androgen and estrogen exposure affected adult spatial learning and hippocampal morphology. Water maze performance, the CA1 and CA3 pyramidal cell field, and the dentate gyrus-granule cell layer (DG-GCL) morphology were assessed at adulthood (70+ days of age) in males, females, androgen-treated (testosterone propionate, TP, or dihydrotestosterone propionate, DHTP) females (2-4 mg/day), estradiol benzoate (EB)-treated females (100 microgram/day), and males treated with the antiandrogen flutamide (8 mg/day). Pregnant rats were injected daily (sc) between Embryonic Day 16 and birth; all pups were delivered by cesarean section. Flutamide-treated males were castrated upon delivery, and adult castrates were used to control for activational effects. Steroid-sensitive sex differences were observed in water maze performance in favor of males. Males had larger CA1 and CA3 pyramidal cell field volumes and soma sizes than females, which were feminized with flutamide treatment. TP and EB, but not DHTP, masculinized CA1 pyramidal cell field volume and neuronal soma size; CA3 was masculinized in both TP- and DHTP-treated females, while EB was ineffective. No effects were observed in cell density, number, or DG-GCL volume or due to adult hormone levels. Thus, prenatal androgens and estrogen influence sex differences in adult spatial navigation and exert differential effects on CA1 and CA3 pyramidal cell morphology. Hence, in addition to the previously reported postnatal component, there is also a prenatal component to the critical period in which gonadal steroids organize the neural mechanisms underlying sex differences in adult spatial ability.

Androgens↗
PubMed2005

Built environment and behavior: spatial sampling using parcel data.

PURPOSE: The quality and economy of inferential research rely heavily on the sampling method. This paper addresses a methodological challenge in environment-behavior research: sampling respondents in relation to their built environmental characteristics. METHODS: A discussion of issues related to traditional neighborhood-based sampling serves to introduce a new spatial sampling strategy. Spatial sampling consists of defining conceptual population of interest, constructing spatial sample frame using parcel-level environmental data in GIS, examining the sample frame, determining the sampling design and size, and drawing the samples. An application of this method is illustrated using a recent study examining environmental correlates of walking and biking. RESULTS: Spatial sampling with parcel-level data ensures sufficient variations in and proper distributions of the environmental variables of interest, while controlling for the conditions of no interest. The use of the individual as unit of analysis offers an economic, generalizable, and easily interpretable approach to environment-behavior research, and discourages the potentially erroneous a priori definition of neighborhoods and aggregation problems. CONCLUSIONS: With its capacity to consider a broad range of detailed environmental variables, spatial sampling contributes to finding new or stronger environment-behavior associations and to the growing number of studies using the social ecologic model.

Bicycling↗
PubMed1990

Evolution of spatial cognition: sex-specific patterns of spatial behavior predict hippocampal size.

In a study of two congeneric rodent species, sex differences in hippocampal size were predicted by sex-specific patterns of spatial cognition. Hippocampal size is known to correlate positively with maze performance in laboratory mouse strains and with selective pressure for spatial memory among passerine bird species. In polygamous vole species (Rodentia: Microtus), males range more widely than females in the field and perform better on laboratory measures of spatial ability; both of these differences are absent in monogamous vole species. Ten females and males were taken from natural populations of two vole species, the polygamous meadow vole, M. pennsylvanicus, and the monogamous pine vole, M. pinetorum. Only in the polygamous species do males have larger hippocampi relative to the entire brain than do females. Two-way analysis of variance shows that the ratio of hippocampal volume to brain volume is differently related to sex in these two species. To our knowledge, no previous studies of hippocampal size have linked both evolutionary and psychometric data to hippocampal dimensions. Our controlled comparison suggests that evolution can produce adaptive sex differences in behavior and its neural substrate.

Animals↗
PubMed2000

Effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on the hippocampus: spatial behavior, electrophysiology, and neuroanatomy.

Prenatal exposure to alcohol can result in fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), characterized by growth retardation, facial dysmorphologies, and a host of neurobehavioral impairments. Neurobehavioral effects in FAS, and in alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder, include poor learning and memory, attentional deficits, and motor dysfunction. Many of these behavioral deficits can be modeled in rodents. This paper reviews the literature suggesting that many fetal alcohol effects result, at least in part, from teratogenic effects of alcohol on the hippocampus. Neurobehavioral studies show that animals exposed prenatally to alcohol are impaired in many of the same spatial learning and memory tasks sensitive to hippocampal damage, including T-mazes, the Morris water maze, and the radial arm maze. Direct evidence for hippocampal involvement is provided by neuroanatomical studies of the hippocampus documenting reduced numbers of neurons, lower dendritic spine density on pyramidal neurons, and decreased morphological plasticity after environmental enrichment in rats exposed prenatally to alcohol. Electrophysiological studies also demonstrate changes in synaptic activity in in vitro hippocampal brain slices isolated from prenatal alcohol-exposed animals. Considered together, these observations demonstrate that prenatal exposure to alcohol can result in abnormal hippocampal development and function. Such studies provide a better understanding of neurological deficits associated with FAS in humans, and may also contribute to the development of strategies to ameliorate the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on behavior.

Animals↗
PubMed2002

Rats can track odors, other rats, and themselves: implications for the study of spatial behavior.

In order to demonstrate that rats solve dead reckoning (path integration) tasks in which they return to a starting location using self-movement (idiothetic) cues, it is necessary to remove external (allothetic) cues. Odor cues, especially those generated by a rat on a single passage, are difficult to control and they can potentially serve as a cue to guide a homeward trip. Because it is presently unknown whether rats can track the cues that they themselves leave, as opposed to the odor trails left by other rats, we investigated this question in the present study. A tracking task was used in which rats: (1) followed a scented string from a refuge to obtain a food pellet located on a large circular table; (2) followed odors left on the table; (3) followed odors left by the passage of another rat; or (4) followed odors left by themselves. Groups of rats were presented with strings scented with either the rat's own odor (Group Own), a conspecific's odor (Group Other), or another scent, vanilla (Group Vanilla). After training, a series of discrimination tests were given to determine the nature of the stimulus that controls scent tracking. The results indicated that Own, Other, and Vanilla groups were equally proficient in discriminating and following their respective odors. The rats were also able to follow odor trails on the table surface as well as a trail left by the single passage of another rat or their own passage. This is the first study to demonstrate that rats can discriminate between conspecific odors and their own odor left during a single passage. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for experimental methodology and olfactory contributions to spatial navigation in general and dead reckoning in particular.

Animals↗
PubMed1982

Chronic exposure to caffeine during early development modifies spatial behavior in juvenile jewel fish schools.

Thirty sibling African jewel fish (Hemichromis bimaculatus) were either chronically exposed to caffeine between 50 to 100 days of age (at a concentration of 14 mg/l) or reared without drug in a control environment. After caffeine was withdrawn, fish in each group were videotaped for 30 minutes while schooling in a large tank. From the video record, mean distances and coefficients of variation of spacing were computed for each fish and its 1st to 9th nearest neighbors in all observations. Spacing distances were nearly identical for the two groups, but the caffeine fish exhibited much more variability in their spacing behavior (p less than 0.00001). This study demonstrates an effect on behavior of moderate caffeine levels present throughout the early developmental period, and illustrates a quantitative method to test for such effects.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Deficits in allothetic and idiothetic spatial behavior in rats with posterior cingulate cortex lesions.

The cingulate cortex plays a central role in bridging neocortical and limbic structures involved in allothetic navigation, a form of navigation requiring the use of external cues. Animals can also navigate using idiothetic cues, which are cues generated by self-movement, but there have been no definitive tests of whether cingulate cortex also plays a role in idiothetic navigation. Rats with anterior cingulate (medial frontal) and posterior cingulate cortex (retrosplenial) suction ablations were trained to search for large food pellets on an open table, and the accuracy with which they returned home with the food was measured. In the idiothetic task they searched for food from a novel starting location under infrared light, and with surface olfactory cues displaced. The rats also received two tests of allothetic navigation. They were tested on a matching-to-place task in which they foraged for food from a number of successively presented new locations under normal room light, and they were trained to locate a hidden platform in a swimming pool (Morris place task). The group with posterior cingulate cortex lesions was severely impaired on all of the navigation tasks whereas the group with anterior cingulate cortex lesions displayed no deficit on the idiothetic task and only moderate deficits on the other tasks. The results demonstrate a role for posterior cingulate region in idiothetic navigation.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Relation of olfactory EEG to behavior: spatial analysis.

The hypothesis that odor-specific patterns of mitral cell activity during odor discrimination might be found in the corresponding spatial patterns of electroencephalogram (EEG) amplitude over a surgically accessible segment of the bulbar surface was tested in rabbits with chronically implanted electrode arrays. The spatial spectrum of the bulbar EEG was derived and compared with the spectrum predicted for the granule cell generator. Spatial filters were devised to identify, enhance, or remove the granule cell contribution to the EEG. Spatial deconvolution was applied to the filtered granule cell activity patterns to correct for distortion caused by volume conduction. The results indicated that the bulb generated odor-specific spatial patterns in rabbits trained to discriminate between two odors. The odor-specific information was not localizable to subsets of channels. This suggested that the discriminative output of the bulb involved the entire structure, even though the receptor input was delivered to limited subsets of mitral cells.

Animals↗