Repeated acquisition and the assessment of centrally acting compounds

Learning by subtraction: Hippocampal activity and effects of ethanol during the acquisition and performance of response sequences

Learning is believed to be reflected in the activity of the hippocampus. However, neural correlates of learning have been difficult to characterize because hippocampal activity is integrated with ongoing behavior. To address this issue, male rats (n = 5) implanted with electrodes (n = 14) in the CA1 subfield responded during two tasks within a single test session. In one task, subjects acquired a new 3-response sequence (acquisition), whereas in the other task, subjects completed a well-rehearsed 3-response sequence (performance). Both tasks though could be completed using an identical response topography and used the same sensory stimuli and schedule of reinforcement. More important, comparing neural patterns during sequence acquisition to those during sequence performance allows for a subtractive approach whereby activity associated with learning could potentially be dissociated from the activity associated with ongoing behavior. At sites where CA1 activity was closely associated with behavior, the patterns of activity were differentially modulated by key position and the serial position of a response within the schedule of reinforcement. Temporal shifts between peak activity and responding on particular keys also occurred during sequence acquisition, but not during sequence performance. Ethanol disrupted CA1 activity while producing rate-decreasing effects in both tasks and error-increasing effects that were more selective for sequence acquisition than sequence performance. Ethanol also produced alterations in the magnitude of modulations and temporal pattern of CA1 activity, although these effects were not selective for sequence acquisition. Similar to ethanol, hippocampal micro-stimulation decreased response rate in both tasks and selectively increased the percentage of errors during sequence acquisition, and provided a more direct demonstration of hippocampal involvement during sequence acquisition. Together, these results strongly support the notion that ethanol disrupts sequence acquisition by disrupting hippocampal activity and that the hippocampus is necessary for the conditioned associations required for sequence acquisition.

Performance of BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice under an incremental repeated acquisition of behavioral chains procedure

BALB/c (n=8) and C57BL/6 (n=11) male mice were trained under an incremental repeated acquisition (IRA) procedure using two distinct training procedures: forward and backward chaining. A new metric for assessing progress on the IRA procedure, progress quotient (PQ), quantified progress as the product of chain length and number of reinforcers earned during a session divided by the total number of reinforcers earned. BALB/c mice progressed further, had higher overall responding, earned more reinforcers, and acquired the response sequences faster than the C57BL/6 mice on both training procedures. There were only minimal effects of training procedure for either strain. The strain differences found between BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice confirm the importance of genetic background to behavior. C57BL/6 mice may be deficient in learning as compared with BALB/c mice but other contributing factors probably include overall responding, motivation, and more rapid satiation or habituation to sucrose reinforcement by the C57BL/6 mice. PQ is a sensitive and valid measure of progress for use in studies of mastery-based incremental repeated acquisition and BALB/c mice perform this challenging learning task better than do C57BL/6 mice.

Acquisition, steady-state performance, and the effects of trimethyltin on the operant behavior and hippocampal GFAP of Long-Evans and Fischer 344 rats

Strain differences represent an overlooked variable that may play an important role in neurotoxic outcomes that can impact regulatory decision making. Here, we examined the strain-dependent effects of trimethyltin (TMT), a compound used as a positive control for behavioral and neurochemical assessments of neurotoxicity. Adult male Long-Evans (LE) and Fischer 344 (F344) rats (n=12 each) were trained to respond under a multiple, fixed-interval 3-min fixed-ratio 10-response (multi FI 3-min FR10) schedule of milk reinforcement. Acquisition was characterized by time-dependent changes in several behavioral endpoints in both strains, although rate of acquisition of the fixed-interval pattern of responding was slower in F344 rats. Steady-state (baseline) performance was characterized by slower overall rates of responding in F344 rats. There was little evidence of strain differences in many of the other baseline performance measures. Rats of each strain were then divided into two equal groups that received either 1 ml/kg saline or 8.0 mg/kg iv TMT approximately 18 h before the next test session. TMT produced transient changes in the performance of LE and F344 rats that lasted for several sessions. For many behavioral measures, F344 rats were more affected by TMT than were LE rats. TMT-induced reactive gliosis, as assessed by assaying glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP), was also greater in F344 rats than in LE rats. These results suggest F344 rats may be more susceptible to TMT-induced neurotoxicity than are LE rats.

Repeated acquisition of a spatial navigation task in mice: effects of spacing of trials and of unilateral middle cerebral artery occlusion

The working memory version of the Morris water escape task, the repeated acquisition task, consists of trial pairs in which an animal is started twice from the same start position. Animals have mastered this task when they need less time to find the platform in the second of the two trials. In this study, study, male C57BL mice were trained on this task with massed, spaced, or spaced delay trials in which there was a 90-min delay between the first and second trials of a pair. The mice trained with spaced trials learned the repeated acquisition task, whereas the mice trained with massed or spaced delay trials were not consistently able to do so. When the mice had reached a stable baseline performance, the middle cerebral artery (MCA) was occluded or the mice were sham-operated. Then, the effects of the MCA occlusion (MCA-O) on the performance in the repeated acquisition tasks were studied. MCA occlusion hardly affected the performance in this task, irrespective of the spacing condition of the trials, although surgery per se seemed to have a transient disruptive effect.

Animal models in cognitive behavioural pharmacology: an overview

Most studies in cognitive behavioural pharmacology have used rodents as subjects and simple learning tasks. This approach is regarded as acceptable because the cognitive abilities of rats may not differ from those of non-human primates and the modelling in animals of those advanced cognitive abilities possessed by humans may be of limited utility. A strength of many existing models lies in their construct validity. However, the face, concurrent and predictive validities of many animal models are low. In part, this is due to the need to take account of species specific characteristics in experimental design. Thus, inter-species differences in learning may be explained not by differences in cognitive ability but by differences in species specific morphological, physiological and behavioural characteristics. Features of the 'ideal' animal model of human cognitive function are listed and potential strategies for future research in cognitive behavioural pharmacology assessed.