title: Bilateral vestibular deafferentation causes deficits in a 5-choice serial reaction time task in rats.
abstract: Peripheral lesions of the vestibular system have been associated with spatial memory deficits in animals and humans; however, no study to date has investigated the effects of such lesions on attention. In this study, we used a 5-choice serial reaction time task (5-CSRTT) to determine whether rats with bilateral vestibular deafferentation (BVD) had attention deficits at 5 months post-op. compared to sham controls. We found that BVD rats took longer than sham animals to reach the designated criterion of >70% correct responses (P=0.006), they made significantly fewer correct responses (P=0.005), and significantly more incorrect responses (P=0.000), while showing no difference in omissions and premature responses and a significant decrease in perseverative responses (P=0.03). BVD rats also responded with a significantly shorter response latency, whether their response was correct (P=0.001) or incorrect (P=0.002), and obtained their reward for a correct response more quickly (P=0.000). These results suggest that rats with bilateral vestibular loss exhibit deficits on a 5-CSRTT that cannot be explained by an inability to respond and that their speed of response is altered.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, School of Medical Sciences, University of Otago Medical School, Dunedin, New Zealand. yiwen.zheng@stonebow.otago.ac.nz
authors.forename: Yiwen
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Sangeeta
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Balabhadrapatruni
authors.forename: Chisako
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Masumura
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Munro
authors.forename: Cynthia L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Darlington
authors.forename: Paul F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Smith
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D003714:Denervation; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology; D007859:Learning Disabilities / Q000209:etiology*; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar; D012201:Reward; D013997:Time Factors; D014722:Vestibule, Labyrinth / Q000294:innervation / Q000502:physiology*