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Impact of age and situation-specific experience on maze learning and learning-sensitive open-field parameters in mice.

The effects of age and situation-specific experience on maze learning and learning-sensitive open-field parameters (OFP) in Swiss albino male mice were studied. We tested the mice longitudinally by means of repeated measures and in cross-section by taking independent samples between the ages of 1-16 months. Mice with situation-specific experience improved their performance up to the age of 11 months. For mice lacking prior experience there was a trend toward impaired performance with regard to error scores and running times with increasing age. The ages of 1, 8, and 10 months were most favorable for the occurrence of quantitative maze learning-sensitive OFP changes, and the ages of 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 13 months were most favorable for the appearance of qualitative changes. The effect of situation-specific experience was interpreted as indicative of decreased emotionality but increased reactivity to novel stimuli or enhanced territorial behavior at the age of 16 months.

Aging↗

PubMed1993

A study of behavioral and sensorial bases of radial maze learning in mice.

In order to analyze the various sensorial and behavioral modes implied in learning on a radial maze, three isogenic mice groups (BALB/C, C57BL/6, and CB6F1) were subjected to four different learning procedures, each ending with a probe test. These four procedures examined the use of radial strategies and allowed to dissociate the use of olfactory and spatial cues. Results showed that all mice preferred to use a radial strategy. When the confinement procedure rendered the use of a radial strategy impossible, BALB/C mice were incapable of establishing spatial orientation but were able to learn the task by using olfactory cues. C57BL/6 mice, on the other hand, seemed to use spatial cues exclusively, while the CB6F1 hybrids showed a high degree of plasticity, using either type of information. These strain-specific differences point out the heterogeneity of the processes called into play during radial maze learning and show that unless olfactory cues are carefully controlled they can account for choice accuracy in some mice.

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PubMed1996

Benzodiazepine receptors increase induced by stress and maze-learning performance in chick forebrain.

Two-day-old chicks were selected on their second escape performance in a one-trial, maze-learning task, and termed high-performance (H-P), moderate-performance (M-P), and low-performance (L-P) chicks. The learning degree was expressed by the escape time improvement being respectively the 64, 46, and 24%. Then, the three selected groups were maintained to reach 15 days of age and then submitted to acute swimming stress, and [3H]flunitrazepam and [3H]Ro 5-4864 receptor bindings were performed on synaptosomal/mitochondrial membranes from forebrain. The receptor number for both radioligands in stressed high-performance chicks was significantly higher than in stressed low-performance chicks. The results suggest that higher performance chicks were more susceptible than lower performance chicks to acute stress associated to increase of both central and peripheral type benzodiazepine receptors, probably due to differences in the degree of endogenous emotionality.

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PubMed1986

The effects of postoperative physical environment on novelty seeking behaviour and maze learning in rats with hippocampal lesions.

The effects of different postoperative physical environments on novelty seeking and maze learning were tested in rats that sustained dorsal hippocampal lesions at 30 days. After surgery, rats were isolated for one month, either with objects or without objects in their cages. All rats were moved daily to new cages and observed during the first 5 min; during these periods, sham-operated rats and rats with lesions interacted similarly with their environment. At the end of the differential housing period, rats were tested for their reactions towards a novel object introduced to their familiar environment (test 1) and towards a novel environment they were free to explore or to avoid (test 2). In test 1, rats with lesions made more contacts with the novel object than did intact rats, and rats previously housed with objects, whether they sustained lesions or not, climbed on the novel object more often than rats reared without objects. In test 2, rats with lesions made no clear distinction between the novel and familiar environments irrespective of their postoperative treatment; in contrast, intact rats housed with objects differed from intact rats housed without objects in their preference for the novel and familiar environments and in the locomotor activity they displayed in these environments. Following these two tests, learning performance was assessed in an 8-arm radial maze. Rats with lesions made more errors than the intact rats, and within the rats with lesions those reared with objects tended to make fewer errors than those reared without objects.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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PubMed1990

Parkinson's disease patient's behaviour in a covered maze learning task.

A computerized maze task was constructed that allowed only partial vision of the maze structure and produced measurements for separate analysis of cognitive processes described as impaired in Parkinson's disease. Eighteen patients suffering from mild Parkinson's disease and 18 individually matched normal controls were investigated. Baseline task response times were found to be identical for both groups. Differences between patients' and controls' performance could be related to (a) a response bias in Parkinson patients that favoured repetition of the previous action and slowed down shifting and (b) an impairment of multistep plan generation. It is speculated that the response bias reflects the disinhibition of cortico-thalamo-cortical reverberation loops which results from striatal dopamine depletion.

Aged↗

PubMed1996

Maze learning by honeybees.

This study examines whether honeybees can learn to fly through complex mazes, in the presence or the absence of specific visual cues. The results are summarized as follows: 1. Bees can learn to fly through a complex maze by following a trail of colored marks. 2. Bees, initially trained to follow color marks through an initial part of the maze, are immediately able to use the same sign-tracking cue to find their way through the rest of the maze, which is unfamiliar to them. 3. Bees trained to follow color marks through a particular maze can use the same cue to negotiate a novel maze. 4. Bees trained to use a particular color to negotiate a maze can immediately use a novel color to negotiate the same maze or even a novel maze. 5. After learning to negotiate a maze by following colored marks, bees can find their way through the maze even when the marks are removed, albeit at reduced levels of accuracy. Thus, the trained bees do not rely solely on sign-tracking to find their way through the maze: they also acquire a spatial memory of the maze or at least a sequence of motor commands describing the correct path through it. 6. Bees can learn to use color as a signal even when it indicates the path through the maze in a symbolic way, for example, blue indicating a turn to the right and green a turn to the left. 7. Bees can learn an unmarked maze. Performance under these conditions is poorer than when marks are provided, but is still significantly better than chance level. 8. Control experiments rule out the use of external landmarks in all of these situations.

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PubMed1990

Home-cage open-field ambulation after maze learning in mice.

The present paper indicates that it is with appropriate methods, i.e., maze learning and a not-previously used home-cage open-field, possible to observe a learning-induced ambulation increase in a familiar environment lacking novel cues. This finding is at variance with an earlier one achieved by electromagnetic recordings indicating a decrease in activity in the home-cage after passive avoidance conditioning.

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PubMed1987

[The development of water maze-learning ability in rats. (2) Effect of pretraining with the water-filled straight channel].

To determine whether pretraining with the water-filled straight channel affects learning acquisition, we studied the water filled multiple T-maze learning ability in 8-weeks-old SPF Wistar-Imamichi rats. The performance time for the straight channel was markedly shortened at the 2nd and 3rd trial compared to the time at the 1st trial on the 1st day. But at subsequent trials on days 2 and 3 it was longer than at the 3rd trial on day 1. At the 1st trial on day 1, the performance time of the group unexperienced in the straight channel was more than three times that of the experienced group. In subsequent trials, however, both groups showed similar performance times. More errors were observed in the unexperienced group than in the experienced group at the 1st trial on day 1. No difference was found between the two groups in subsequent trials. These results indicate that the learning acquisition was largely influenced by pretraining in the straight channel at the 1st trial on day 1.

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PubMed1991

Water maze learning in rats with neocortical and hippocampal lesions.

Experiments were carried out in order to determine whether groups of rats (N = 7) with unilateral or bilateral ablation of the neocortex or with removal of the neocortex plus the hippocampus of either hemisphere could learn to escape from a tank of water (57 cm in diameter) climbing a visible platform when trained for 6 consecutive days. Comparison of the swimming escape latencies among groups showed no statistically significant differences, although over the first four trial blocks the decorticate group was slower (77.19 +/- 39.31, 52.45 +/- 32.37, 31.18 +/- 13.62 and 15.74 +/- 10.94 s, respectively) than the other groups, whose latencies ranged from about 70 s (the longest in the first trial block) to 8 s (the longest in the fourth trial block). Nevertheless, hemi- and bilaterally decorticate rats were still able to learn the water maze task. The same was observed for hemidecorticate plus hemihippocampectomized rats. These results indicate that the neocortex, and the hippocampus in the absence of the neocortex, is not essential for spatial localization using a cue-learning strategy.

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PubMed1976

The dorsal tegmental noradrenergic projection: an analysis of its role in maze learning.

The hypothesis that the noradrenergic projection from the locus coeruleus (LC) to the cerebral cortex and hippocampus is an important neural substrate for learning was evaluated. Maze performance was studied in rats receiving either electrolytic lesions of LC or 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) lesions of the dorsal tegmental noradrenergic projection. The LC lesions did not disrupt the acquisition of a running response for food reinforcement in an L-shaped runway, even though hippocampal-cortical norepinephrine (NE) was reduced to 29%. Greater telencephalic NE depletions (to 6% of control levels) produced by 6-OHDA also failed to disrupt the acquisition of this behavior or to impair the acquisition of a food-reinforced position habit in a T-maze. Neither locomotor activity nor habituation to a novel environment was affected by the 6-OHDA lesions. Rats with such lesions were, however, found to be significantly more distractible than were controls during the performance of a previously trained response. The hypothesis that telencephalic NE is of fundamental importance in learning was not supported. The data suggest that this system may participate in attentional mechanisms.

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PubMed1985

Pre-natal administration of diazepam improves radial maze learning in mice.

A number of studies have found that the peri-natal exposure of rodents to diazepam alters their adult behaviour. Adult male mice, treated with diazepam or appropriate controls during pregnancy, were examined in terms of their ability to learn a radial maze. Those animals receiving diazepam prior, but not after birth, learnt the maze significantly more rapidly. The results are discussed in terms of the possible involvement of the hippocampus in this influence of diazepam.

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PubMed1971

Caudate nucleus stimulation retroactively impairs complex maze learning in the rat.

Rats, with permanent electrodes implanted bilaterally in the caudateputamen complex, were stimulated with single pulses after reinforcement of each maze learning trial or were stimulated with multiple pulses after each choice point or after reinforcement. Single pulses retarded the development of learning only when stringent learning criteria were required, whereas multiple pulses interfered with acquisition when the criteria for learning were less difficult.

Age Factors↗

PubMed1976

[Y-maze learning in two strains of mice. Effects of instrumental and pharmacologic sleep deprivation].

Effects of instrumental and pharmacological deprivation of sleep on Y-maze learning have been studied in two inbred strains of mice (C57BR/cd/Orl and C57BL/6/Orl), having identical sleep rhythms, but mainly differing in their ability to learn. Administration of alpha-methyl-DOPA (100 mg/kg) provokes complete suppression of paradoxical sleep (PS) for 9-11 h. Injection immediately after each training session over the first 5 days caused a delay in acquisition of an active avoidance task in C57BR mice. Treated C57BL/6 mice exhibited a significant facilitation of acquisition. Similar results were obtained by instrumental deprivation of sleep for 10 h.

Animals↗

PubMed1995

Impaired maze learning and cerebral glucose utilization in aged hypertensive rats.

To elucidate the effects of prolonged hypertension on brain function during aging, we examined learning of an eight-arm radial maze task and local cerebral glucose utilization in young-adult (3 to 4 months old) and aged (16 to 17 months old) spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar-Kyoto rats (WKY). Young-adult SHR learned the task more slowly than young-adult WKY, but cerebral glucose utilization, measured by the [14C]2-deoxyglucose method in 24 brain structures, was not significantly different in the two groups. The aged SHR and WKY exhibited impaired learning ability. Cerebral glucose utilization was reduced (13% to 23%) in six regions in aged WKY and in 12 regions in aged SHR compared with values in the respective young-adult groups. Furthermore, the aged SHR showed a greater disturbance of learning acquisition and more profound reduction of cerebral glucose utilization in five regions than the aged WKY. In SHR, hypometabolism, indicated by a decrease in glucose utilization in 15 brain structures including the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and visual system, was significantly correlated with impaired learning acquisition, indicated by an increase in total error choices. These findings show that (1) hypertension per se does not impair maze learning or cerebral glucose utilization in young-adult rats, and (2) brain function is impaired during aging and prolonged hypertension is an additional factor facilitating brain dysfunction associated with neuronal hypoactivities, resulting in behavioral deterioration including learning disability. Thus, early control of hypertension seems important for preventing or reducing brain dysfunction in senescence.

Aging↗

PubMed1979

Intrahypothalamic microinjections of noradrenaline with and without induction of the alimentary drive as a reward in a T maze learning in rats.

Noradrenaline injected into the perifornical region of the anterior part of the lateral hypothalamus in rats can serve as a reinforcement in a T maze learning, whether it induces the activation of the alimentary drive or not. It follows that the main role of noradrenaline in this brain area consists not so much in induction of the alimentary drive as in activation of the very process which is essential for the reinforcement. It is claimed that intrahypothalamic microinjections of noradrenaline evoke pleasurable states which constitute a virtual reinforcement of motivated behavior.

Animals↗

PubMed1979

The compensatory role of food-motivation in the maze learning performance of lactationally undernourished rats.

To test the hypothesis that the motivational effects of neonatal undernutrition might conceal the detrimental effects on learning, we tested previously undernourished and normally nourished Sprague-Dawley rats on learning of a novel maze pattern under either latent learning (nonappetitive) or food-motivated conditions. Under the nonappetitive conditions, the previously undernourished rats learned significantly less than the normal controls, but when motivated for food, the undernourished rats performed as well as the controls. When learning performance measures are sensitive to motivation, differential motivation between undernourished and normal subjects must be controlled or eliminated.

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PubMed1988

[Studies on the development of water maze-learning ability in rats (3). Effect of the learning schedule on learning acquisition].

The effect of different learning schedules massed or distributed practice conditions (3 trials a day for 3 days), on water-filled multiple T-maze learning ability of 8-week-old SPF Wistar-Imamichi rats was investigated. Although the mean number of errors decreased day by day in both groups, the number of errors in a given day and the total number of errors in 3 days did not differ significantly between the two groups. A tendency toward a decrease in the number of errors was observed as the trials proceeded in the group with distributed practice but not in the group with massed practice. The result suggests that a certain time period for rest after each trial is necessary to acquire the memory.

Animals↗

PubMed1992

[Synthesis of 1-trans-cinnamoyl- and 1-[trans-3-(pyridyl)acryloyl]-2-pyrrolidinone derivatives and their effect on hemicholinium-induced impairment of water maze learning in mice].

Various 1-trans-cinnamoyl-2-pyrrolidinones (6a-k) and 1-[trans-3-(pyridyl)acryloyl]-2-pyrrolidinones (9a-c) were prepared as analogues of the notropic agent, aniracetam (2), and their effects on hemicholinium-induced impairment of water maze learning in mice were examined. 1-(trans-3-Methoxycinnamoyl)-, 1-(trans-4-methoxycinnamoyl)- and 1-(trans-4-chlorocinnamoyl)-2-pyrrolidinones (6c, d, h) and 1-[trans-3-(3-pyridyl)acryloyl]-2-pyrrolidinone (9c) were found to be more active than aniracetam in these tests. In addition, these 2-pyrrolidinones (6a-k, 9a-c) were apparently observed to lengthen mouse survival time following hemicholinium injection into the brain.

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