Passive avoidance learning in rats, mice, gerbils, and hamsters

Abstract

The acquisition of a passive avoidance response to electric shock was studied in hooded and albino rats, albino mice, gerbils, and hamsters. Rats acquired this response more rapidly than any of the other species. There were no differences in rate of acquisition between the two strains of rats or among the other three species. These results indicate that species-specific defense reactions may interact with the particular behavioral task in which the organism is studied.

Learned Avoidance in the Male Syrian Hamster: Investigating the Outcome of a Glucocorticoid Antagonist on Reconsolidation

“…However, this research has used a simpler form of fear learning (e.g., electric shocks) and also different rodents, such as rats (Taubenfeld et al, 2009;Tronel & Alberini, 2007;Walters & Abel, 1971). Deębiec et al (2006) argue that the disruption of complex fear memory could be difficult, as reconsolidation seems to occur only if the memory is directly activated and therefore the process may not be disrupted.…”

“…Previous research measuring stress in animal models has typically used electric shocks as a stressor (Pitman et al, 2011;Taubenfeld, Riceberg, New, & Alberini, 2009;Walters & Abel, 1971). However, we believe that social stress is a more naturalistic stressor.…”

Conditioned suppression in the gerbil

“…The gerbil seems to perform fairly well in shock-motivated tasks such as two-way shuttle avoidance (Powell & Peck, 1969), Sidman avoidance (Powell & Peck, 1969), and passive avoidance . (Lippman, Galosy, & Thompson, 1970;Walters & Abel, 1971), even though rate of acquisition in these tasks may be slower than that observed for the rat. These performance deficits are probably not indicative of a lack of learning ability since Blass and Rollin (1969) have demonstrated, with a miniaturized Wisconsin General Test Apparatus, that the gerbil's performance on object-discrimination learning sets is only slightly below that observed for the cat.…”

Avoidance differences between rats and gerbils

“…When they are, gerbils are inferior to rats, since their high level of locomotor responding is not compatible with the behavior required, i.e., staying during the intertrial interval and running during the CS·US interval. On the other hand, gerbils are not inferior when intertrial responses are prohibited, since their locomotor bias is not punished and is compatible with the required avoidance response.It was suggested by Walters and Abel (1971) that rats and Y·maze tests, The ordinal relationship among the perform passive avoidance better than gerbils while strains in avoidance performance was found to be the gerbils perform active avoidance better than rats. This same in both tasks, However, in the Y-maze all strains observation derives support from a number of compar· learned the brightness discrimination problem equally isons of these species in avoidance tasks.…”

“…It was suggested by Walters and Abel (1971) that rats and Y·maze tests, The ordinal relationship among the perform passive avoidance better than gerbils while strains in avoidance performance was found to be the gerbils perform active avoidance better than rats. This same in both tasks, However, in the Y-maze all strains observation derives support from a number of compar· learned the brightness discrimination problem equally isons of these species in avoidance tasks.…”