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PubMed1990

Buspirone impairment of performance of passive avoidance and spatial learning tasks in the rat.

The effects of buspirone on the execution of step-through passive avoidance and spatial navigation learning tasks were assessed. In view of the anxiolytic properties of the drug, its effects on shock induced ultrasonic vocalizations and shock suppressed locomotor activity in a hole-board were also determined. Doses (0.5, 1 and 2 mg/kg, IP) which did not affect exploratory activity in a novel environment (light/dark box and hole-board apparatus) were used. Buspirone (1 and 2 mg/kg) impaired performance on the 24 h passive avoidance recall test when given prior to the training and the test sessions or prior to the test session only but not when given before the training trial only. The stress response to the mild footshock, as measured in terms of suppressed locomotor activity in the hole-board apparatus and post-shock ultrasonic vocalizations, was reduced by buspirone (at 1 and 2 mg/kg, respectively), indicating that its effect on behavior in the passive avoidance learning task is probably due to its anxiolytic properties. Evidence for a possible amnesic effect of buspirone (2 mg/kg) was found on the acquisition and probe test trials in the spatial navigation task. During training the latency to find a submerged escape platform in a water maze was increased. Performance on a probe test was also impaired but this effect was not apparent in animals which had received buspirone only prior to the probe test. Although these changes may be attributable to alterations in many aspects of cognitive processing, the possibility of a direct effect on memory warrants further investigation.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Physical activity effects on hippocampal and parietal cortical cholinergic function and spatial learning in F344 rats.

In the present investigation, the effects of physical activity on hippocampal cholinergic function, parietal cortical cholinergic function, and spatial memory were examined in F344 rats. Single bouts of physical activity elevated hippocampal and cortical high affinity choline uptake, whereas chronic physical activity significantly reduced only hippocampal high affinity choline uptake (HACU) and elevated muscarinic (QNB) receptor density. Three weeks prior to the end of the 14-week chronic treadmill running protocol, a group of chronic-run rats and their non-run controls were tested on a stringent version of Whishaw's place learning-set task. Chronic-run rats exhibited enhanced performance on the spatial task by significantly reduced second trial latencies and elevated first and second trial proximity ratio scores. Chronic-run spatial memory tested rats also showed enhanced hippocampal HACU and muscarinic receptor binding. These data indicate that chronic physical activity improves spatial learning performance. This improvement may be due, in part, to a chronic running-induced enhancement of hippocampal cholinergic functioning.

Animals↗
PubMed1988

Learning in rats with caudate-putamen lesions: unimpaired classical conditioning and beneficial effects of redundant stimulus cues on instrumental and spatial learning deficits.

The effects of caudate-putamen lesions in the rat on conditioning were investigated in three experiments. In Experiment 1, rats with lesions were impaired on a spatial task that required learning to make the correct position response, but no deficit was obtained when the alternatives were differentiated by salient visual cues. Performance remained good even when the visual cues were removed. A classical conditioned suppression paradigm was used in Experiment 2, and caudate-putamen lesions were found not to impair acquisition of suppression or overshadowing. In Experiment 3 we revealed poor instrumental learning in subjects with lesions as retarded acquisition of lever-press responding and depressed variable interval response rates. When a light stimulus was present together with reinforced responses, response rates were depressed in the control group (which suggested an overshadowing phenomenon) but were potentiated in the group with lesions. The results showed that caudate-putamen lesions did not produce a general deficit in association formation. There was disruption of learning about responses but not stimuli and, moreover, it was found that redundant stimulus cues aided response learning. It appears that for normal subjects, the salience or associability of the response cues may largely determine the influence of stimuli presented during instrumental conditioning.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

Developments of a water-maze procedure for studying spatial learning in the rat.

Developments of an open-field water-maze procedure in which rats learn to escape from opaque water onto a hidden platform are described. These include a procedure (A) for automatically tracking the spatial location of a hooded rat without the use of attached light-emitting diodes; (B) for studying different aspects of spatial memory (e.g. working memory); and (C) for studying non-spatial discrimination learning. The speed with which rats learn these tasks suggests that they may lend themselves to a variety of behavioural investigations, including pharmacological work and studies of cerebral function.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Scopolamine-induced deficits in acquisition of a complex spatial learning.

The role of scopolamine was studied in a complex spatial orientation task. The procedure involved an increasing difficulty of the task: at the pretraining stage a cue (box) was placed at the reinforcement spot and the animal could give a correct response by adopting either a cue-strategy or an orientation response (i.e., go to the arm on the right of a visual landmark). In the subsequent spatial training, the box was removed, so that the orientation response was the only correct one. Results show that scopolamine-injected animals are able to use a cue-strategy but are unable to acquire a spatial orientation strategy: this more complex task asks for more time and for more sustained attention. When the response is already partly acquired, scopolamine has less effect. The cholinergic system would thus be involved in the quality or even the complexity of the response rather than in the retention itself. Though a state-dependent effect may not be excluded, it by itself cannot explain the observed differences. Finally, an impairment of the maintenance of attention could be responsible for the deficits observed in the acquisition of the complex task.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Early rearing environment and dorsal hippocampal ibotenic acid lesions: long-term influences on spatial learning and alternation in the rat.

Behavioural responses in a set of spatial and cue tasks were assessed in adult rats that had been given ibotenic acid lesions of the dorsal hippocampus at weaning. The lesions or sham operations were immediately followed by one month of differential rearing, either in enriched, social or isolated housing environments. The differential rearing was followed by standard (social) housing conditions until behavioural testing began at 4 months of age. Compared to sham-operated rats, the rats with early cytotoxic lesions showed substantial impairments on learning and efficient strategy formation in radial arm maze, retention of a spatial location, but not of a cue-marked location, in a + maze and spontaneous alternation. Differential rearing had some long-term effects depending on the task. Sham-operated rats which had been housed in isolation used a pattern of strategies in the radial arm maze that resembled the pattern used by rats with lesions. Early enrichment, on the other hand, alleviated lesion deficits only in a spontaneous alternation task in a T-maze where the variety and salience of proximal cues were maximised. Enrichment increased lesion deficits in the radial maze task, where distal cues only could guide performance. The results suggest that the hippocampus may play an important role in the use of contextual information and that behavioural recovery after early hippocampal damage--limited to situations in which featural information is highly salient--may be permanently induced by rearing in environments, as in enriched ones, where rats can attend to and manipulate environmental cues.

Animals↗
PubMed1990

The effect of early experience on water maze spatial learning and memory in rats.

In the first of two experiments on spatial competence, groups of light-reared (LR) and dark-reared (DR) rats were compared using a "latent learning" variation of the Morris Water Maze task. On their initial test, the LR rats benefited more than DR rats did from viewing the room/pool from a platform in the correct location. Further, visually experienced rats remember the location of the platform more than DR rats when retested one month later. In a second experiment, in which a proximal cue as well as location was varied from trial to trial. LR rats again proved to be more competent than their DR counterparts. This second task also revealed significant benefits related to stimulation history in the case of a third group of animals raised in enriched or complex environment (CR) conditions. The results are discussed in terms of the nature of the impact of early experience on the ability to acquire and remember spatial concepts.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Spatial learning of adult rats with fetal alcohol exposure: deficits are sex-dependent.

The effects of prenatal alcohol exposure on learning in adult offspring were studied in a spatial task in a T-maze. Male and female Long-Evans rats were selected from litters whose dams had received one of three treatments: alcohol in a liquid diet (35% ethanol-derived calories, 35% EDC), pair-fed nutritional control (0% ethanol-derived calories, 0% EDC) or standard control (lab chow, LC). The task included trial-independent (reference memory) and trial-dependent (working memory) components: subjects were required to make a fixed left-right discrimination, and then to alternate left and right choices to escape water. Prenatal alcohol exposure was associated with a greater number of reference errors for both sexes; only males from the alcohol prenatal treatment group, however, were impaired on the working memory component. These results suggest that prenatal exposure to alcohol can cause behavioral dysfunctions that persist into adulthood. Secondly, the pattern of memory impairments suggests that both sexes may be equivalently damaged in neural areas subserving reference memory, but that males are selectively more vulnerable in neural areas subserving working memory.

Animals↗
PubMed1991

Effect of exposure to high pressure on subsequent spatial learning and memory in rats.

The effects of high helium pressure on the subsequent acquisition of spatial memory were studied in male rats. Thirty-two rats were exposed to 65 ATA helium-oxygen pressure for 4.2 days, decompressed (total time in chamber 5 days), and then tested in an eight-arm radial maze. Thirty-two control rats were exposed in the chamber to 1 ATA air. Each rat had 20 sessions in the maze (2 sessions/day for 10 days), and the number of correct (visiting an arm not previously visited to obtain the reward pellet) and incorrect choices (visiting a previously visited arm) were recorded. Statistical analysis showed that the rats exposed to 65 ATA performed significantly better than 1-ATA controls during the first 8 of 20 sessions. This effect was most pronounced in sessions 5-8. Results for sessions 9-20 showed that the pressure-treated rats still made more correct choices but to an extent that did not always reach statistical significance. Possible explanations include the pressure-treated rats performing better because of hunger after a lower food consumption at pressure. Alternatively, pressure itself may enhance proposed mechanisms of spatial memory such as long-term potentiation.

Animals↗
PubMed1987

Exploration and spatial learning in staggerer mutant mice.

Staggerer mutant mice, that lose cerebellar Purkinje cells and granule cells and inferior olive neurons, were evaluated in tests of spontaneous alternation and maze learning. It was found that, contrary to normal mice, the staggerer mutants did not alternate spontaneously and had deficits in the acquisition of maze learning. It is hypothesized that the olivocerebellar system has a role in visuo-spatial organization.

Animals↗
PubMed1984

Effects of gender and alcoholism on verbal and visual-spatial learning.

Sex differences in cognitive abilities of chronic alcoholics were investigated using a paired-associates learning test with separate but similarly structured verbal and visual-spatial components. Four groups of 35 subjects each, equated for age and education, were tested: male and female alcoholics, and male and female community control subjects. As expected, sex differences were found on the component tasks: overall, nonalcoholic women performed significantly better than nonalcoholic men on the verbal measure, and nonalcoholic men performed better than nonalcoholic women on the visual-spatial measure. Nonalcoholic men had a larger discrepancy between component scores than nonalcoholic women, suggesting greater lateralization of cognitive functions; however, this difference did not reach significance. The effects of alcoholism were different for the sexes. Alcoholic women were not impaired on either the verbal or visual-spatial measure, but the alcoholic men demonstrated deficits in visual-spatial performance. In addition, they showed less difference between verbal and visual-spatial component scores than the other groups, suggesting that alcoholism attenuated the effects of hemispheric specialization for cognitive abilities normally found in men.

Adult↗
PubMed1985

Spatial learning disabilities and underachievement among university anatomy students.

In this study the relationship between underachievement in anatomy and spatial ability (both geometrical and anatomical) is investigated. Subjects were second-year medical students at the University of Cape Town from 1980 to 1983. Geometrical spatial ability was measured using a battery of three-dimensional exercises involving the sectioning, joining, translation, rotation and visualization of simple solid objects. Anatomical spatial achievement was measured using university practical examination scores of April, June and October, as well as students' scores on those items in the April, June and November MCQ anatomy examinations which were classified as spatially three-dimensional by a panel of lecturers in anatomy. Non-spatial anatomical achievement was measured using the university essay examination scores of April, June and November, together with students' scores on the non-spatial items in the MCQ anatomy examinations. From 1980 to 1983 it was found that students who failed the battery of geometrical spatial exercises and/or recorded large, persistent deficits on spatial MCQs relative to non-spatial MCQs, scored significantly lower marks in practical anatomy examinations throughout the year than those students who scored well in the battery of geometrical spatial exercises. Spatially competent and spatially inept students performed equally well on the non-spatial MCQs and the non-spatial essay examinations. Borderline and failing students recorded the greatest deficits in anatomical spatial scores (for whom losses of approximately 18% occurred in practical examinations in anatomy). Since potential failures with persistent spatial handicaps can be readily identified by mid-year, a programme of differentiated teaching methods is recommended for these students.

Achievement↗
PubMed1984

Learning spatial dimensions with a visual sensory aid: Molyneux revisited.

The relationship between sensory aid research and several areas of perceptual learning has been explored with five experiments on learning the use of the Binaural Sensory Aid, an electronic sensor in which pitch specifies distance and interaural amplitude difference (IAD) specifies direction. The training task required reaching to objects in near space, with tactile error feedback. Perceptual learning for both dimensions was demonstrated within 72 trials, giving a level of performance comparable to the use of a natural sound source, although performance with the direction cue did not reach asymptote until a second training session. Training was unaffected by various kinds of regularity in the spatial target sequences, or by a reduction in the number of spatial target locations until only two locations were used; at this point directional accuracy declines. Training only one dimension at a time did not produce additional improvement of performance on that dimension, but did impair generalization of the direction cue. Learning of the pitch-distance dimension was generally better than that of the IAD dimension, possibly because of its greater discriminability with this device. Generally, the pattern of results indicates that in learning to use such devices subjects readily determine the sensory dimensions of the codes and have considerable ability to generalize to new locations.

Distance Perception↗
PubMed1988

Rotational stimulation disrupts spatial learning in fornix-lesioned rats.

Normal and fornix-lesioned rats were trained to find water in a version of a spatial discrimination task involving the use of a cross maze modified for interspersing rotational stimulation before the start of each trial. The central (cross) portion of the maze rested on a turntable and consisted of a covered start box opening into the intersection of the cross, allowing choice among three covered alleys, each of which led through a black curtain onto a stationary goal arm. The animal could be started in one of three positions (0 degree, 90 degrees, 270 degrees) in relation to the rewarded goal arm. Room cues were not available until after the animal made the choice in the covered tunnel area. A 20-day testing period in which one to ten full revolutions were interspersed before the start of each trial revealed marked differences between normal and fornix-lesioned animals. The overall performance of normal animals improved from 40% correct choices to 85% correct during the testing period. Fornix-lesioned rats showed no significant improvement during the same period. Performance on probe trials in which room cues were made available to the animals during interspersed rotations improved rapidly and was not significantly different between the two groups. The results suggest that adaptation to vestibular system stimulation was required to solve the covered tunnel task in normal rats and that such processes were disrupted in fornix-lesioned rats.

Animals↗
PubMed1989

Enhanced detection of nucleus basalis magnocellularis lesion-induced spatial learning deficit in rats by modification of training regimen.

Bilateral excitotoxic lesions of the nucleus basalis magnocellularis (NBM) in the rat cause deficits in the water maze, a spatial memory paradigm. Previous investigations aimed at reversing the water maze performance deficit with anticholinesterase treatments have been unable to demonstrate a consistent drug effect due to the relatively good acquisition of the task seen following NBM lesions. The present investigation tested three different water maze training regimens designed to separate the learning curves. F-344 rats received bilateral NBM injections of ibotenic acid; sham-operated rats served as controls. The animals were tested in three groups in the water maze as follows: (1) four trials per day with no intertrial interval (standard paradigm), (2) four trials per day with a 10-minute intertrial interval, and (3) two trials per day with no intertrial interval. Each group was tested in the water maze for five consecutive days, followed by two days of rest, and then tested for an additional five days. The two-trial per day paradigm was more difficult than the standard paradigm for both lesions and controls and yielded the most difference between lesions and controls as compared to the other two testing regimens. The 10-min intertrial interval schedule was more difficult than the standard paradigm for lesioned animals but acquisition was not affected in control rats. These data demonstrate that the nucleus basalis lesions cause a deficit in the water maze task regardless of training parameters. Further, while all rats showed some acquisition of the water maze task, training schedule affected the level of learning of both lesioned and control rats.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1989

The effects of undernutrition during early life on spatial learning.

Recent research has shown that a lengthy period of undernutrition during early postnatal life can cause alterations in the morphological structure of the dentate gyrus. As this region is involved in the control of spatial memory, we decided to investigate whether undernourished rats also showed any deficits in this aspect of behaviour. Rats were undernourished from about birth until either 30 or 60 days of age and then nutritionally rehabilitated for a lengthy period before testing. There were significant differences in the body weight of control and undernourished rats in each experiment. The testing procedure involved rats being placed in a large pool of opaque water. They were required to swim to find a hidden platform located just below the water surface onto which they could escape. Each rat had to perform this test 20 times over a period of 3 days. The time taken and the total distance swum by each rat during each trial was measured. In Experiment 1, rats were familiarised with the water before testing took place, whereas in Experiment 2 they were not. There were no significant differences in the latency to find the platform or the distance swum between well-fed control and previously undernourished rats in either experiment. In conclusion, in our experiments we could not demonstrate that undernutrition during early life caused any deficits in spatial memory performance.

Animals↗