Radial arm maze performance in rats following neonatal dopamine depletion

Abstract

Neonatal dopamine (DA) depletion produces learning impairments both during development and throughout adulthood in the rat. The present experiment further investigated the memory capabilities of the dopamine-depleted rat by assessing performance in the radial arm maze. Results showed that, following neonatal injection of 6-hydroxydopamine and desmethylimipramine, lesioned rats per-performed more accurately than controls. In this paradigm, DA-depleted rats tended to enter each arm to obtain a food pellet and not enter unbaited, incorrect arms. The difference in performance of control and treated rats could not be accounted for by differences in locomotor activity, body weights, or motivational factors. A computer analysis of the data revealed that DA-depleted animals adopted a strategy of choosing adjacent arms consecutively, which probably accounted for their superior performance. Results are discussed in terms using algorithms versus extra-maze cues to complete the maze following early brain injury.

Tetrachlorodibenzo‐p‐dioxin exposure alters radial arm maze performance and hippocampal morphology in female AhR +/– mice

“…The MazeMate program recorded the number of working memory errors (re‐entries into an arm from which the food had already been retrieved), total time on the maze, latency (seconds/arm entry) and the sequence of arm entries. The sequence of arm entries was used to calculate a summary statistic, C , which was a measure of adjacent arm selection behavior (Pearson et al . 1984).…”

Spatial and temporal response patterns on the eight-arm radial maze

“…High degrees of response stereotypy commonly occur when rats are tested on the radial maze: in particular, subjects choose sequences of adjacent arms [5,7,10,15,17,22,24,26]. Similar response patterning has been observed in Betta splendens [19], pigeons [2,18], mice [6,16], gerbils [25], and children [1].…”

“…Determining the relationship between response stereotypy and response algorithms may be particularly important for subjects given brain lesions [9,14,23] or treated with drugs [15,21,24] for the express purpose of disrupting memory systems. Such manipulations may selectively eliminate one of several strategies available to an intact, untreated animal.…”

Interactions between response stereotypy and memory strategies on the eight-arm radial maze

“…It has been used extensively in studies of spatial memory in animals 14,26,27,37 , including studies of the physiological 2,9,10,12,15,17,19,21,30,44,46 , pharmacological 11,12,31,48 , and developmental 8,13,47 components of spatial memory. Radial maze performance has been examined for a variety of species 1,3,6,32,39,40,49 and under a variety of test procedures 5,18,20,38,45,50,51 .…”

“…Radial maze performance has been examined for a variety of species 1,3,6,32,39,40,49 and under a variety of test procedures 5,18,20,38,45,50,51 . Response stereotypy, that is, subjects repeatedly choosing arms a fixed distance apart-particularly adjacent arms-has been so prominent on the radial maze 1,6,8,13,19,30,31,38,45,48,50,51 that at least two computer simulation programs have been developed to account for the effects of response patterns on radial maze performance 7,42 .…”