Autoshaped Head Poking in the Mouse: A Quantitative Analysis of the Learning Curve

Papachristos, Efstathios B.; Gallistel, C. R.

doi:10.1901/jeab.2006.71-05

Cited by 49 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Reynolds, 1961). This problem is similar to the one encountered when averaging over blocks of trials before fitting an acquisition function (e.g., Thein et al, 2008) as it may give the misleading impression that the emergence of responding is continuous rather than step-like, as is often evident from an analysis of individual subjects (Balci et al, 2009; Estes, 1956; Estes & Maddox, 2005; Gallistel et al, 2004; Morris & Bouton, 2006; Papachristos & Gallistel, 2006). …”

Section: Temporal Information In Conditioningmentioning

confidence: 92%

Time and Associative Learning.

Balsam¹,

Drew²,

Gallistel³

2010

CCBR

141

186

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In a basic associative learning paradigm, learning is said to have occurred when the conditioned stimulus evokes an anticipatory response. This learning is widely believed to depend on the contiguous presentation of conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. However, what it means to be contiguous has not been rigorously defined. Here we examine the empirical bases for these beliefs and suggest an alternative view based on the hypothesis that learning about the temporal relationships between events determines the speed of emergence, vigor and form of conditioned behavior. This temporal learning occurs very rapidly and prior to the appearance of the anticipatory response. The temporal relations are learned even when no anticipatory response is evoked. The speed with which an anticipatory response emerges is proportional to the informativeness of the predictive cue (CS) regarding the rate of occurrence of the predicted event (US). This analysis gives an account of what we mean by “temporal pairing” and is in accord with the data on speed of acquisition and basic findings in the cue competition literature. In this account, learning depends on perceiving and encoding temporal regularities rather than stimulus contiguities.

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Section: Temporal Information In Conditioningmentioning

confidence: 92%

Time and Associative Learning.

Balsam¹,

Drew²,

Gallistel³

2010

CCBR

141

186

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Instead, vigorous conditioned responding often appeared abruptly, after a period of no appreciable responding, the duration of which varied from rat to rat. To identify when these changes in responding occurred, we used an algorithm developed by Gallistel that detects changes in the slope of the cumulative record (25,26,60). The slope of the cumulative record indicates a momentary rate of responding (61).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We considered animals to have learned if they expressed 60% CRs during training. In those animals, we then determined the trial at which each animal reached its highest level of responding (25,26). This trial, hereafter referred to as the ''asymptotic trial,'' was the trial at which an animal reached 95% of its asymptotic performance.…”

Section: Females Outperform Males During Training With Trace Eyeblinkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Female rats learn trace memories better than male rats and consequently retain a greater proportion of new neurons in their hippocampi

Dalla

Papachristos

Whetstone

et al. 2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

Self Cite

108

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Learning increases the survival of new cells that are generated in the hippocampal formation before the training experience, especially if the animal learns to associate stimuli across time [Gould E, Beylin A, Tanapat P, Reeves A, Shors TJ (1999) Nat Neurosci 2:260 -265]. All relevant studies have been conducted on male rats, despite evidence for sex differences in this type of learning. In the present study, we asked whether sex differences in learning influence the survival of neurons generated in the adult hippocampus. Male and female adult rats were injected with one dose of bromodeoxyuridine (BrdU; 200 mg/kg), to label one population of dividing cells. One week later, half of the animals were trained with a temporal learning task of trace eyeblink conditioning, while the other half were not trained. Animals were killed 1 day after training (12 days after the BrdU injection). Hippocampal tissue was stained for BrdU and a marker of immature neurons, doublecortin. Both sexes learned to emit the conditioned eyeblink response during the trace interval. As a consequence, more new neurons remained in their hippocampi than in sex-matched controls. In individual animals, the number of surviving cells correlated positively with asymptotic performance; those that expressed more learned responses retained more new neurons. However, animals that learned very well retained even more new cells if they required many trials to do so. Because females emitted more learned responses than males did, they retained nearly twice as many new cells per unit volume of tissue. This effect was most evident in the ventral region of the hippocampal formation. Thus, sex differences in learning alter the anatomical structure of the hippocampus. As a result, male and female brains continue to differentiate in adulthood.eyeblink conditioning ͉ learning ͉ neurogenesis ͉ sex differences ͉ stem cell

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“…It varies by as much as two orders of magnitude from subject to subject (Gallistel, Balsam et al 2004, Papachristos andGallistel 2006). It also depends on which conditioned response one chooses to record (Gallistel, Craig et al 2013 Figures 5 and 6).…”

Section: The Parametric Invariances In Acquisition and Extinctionmentioning

confidence: 99%