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A homing procedure for studying spatial memory in immature and adult rodents.
Journal article

A homing procedure for studying spatial memory in immature and adult rodents.

  • Schenk F Institut de Physiologie, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.
  • 1989-01-01
Published in:
  • Journal of neuroscience methods. - 1989
Animals
Central Nervous System
Homing Behavior
Learning
Memory
Muridae
Olfactory Pathways
Rats
Reaction Time
Spatial Behavior
English In this procedure, subjects learn the spatial position of one hole out of many, that allows them to escape from a large open-field into their home cage. The arena is circular and can be rotated between trials so that no proximal landmark is permanently associated with the target hole. This task is thus similar to the Morris water maze procedure, since subjects must remember the position of the escape hole relative to extra-arena cues only. In addition it allows studying the importance of olfactory cues such as scent marks in or around a hole. Since the motivation is to reach home and the motor requirement is low, this task provides a useful alternative to the Morris place navigation task for studying spatial orientation in weanling or senescent rats. Examples are given showing that various behavioural parameters provide a good estimation as how subjects learn this task.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://sonar.ch/global/documents/277738
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