title: Operant conditioning of rat navigation using electrical stimulation for directional cues and rewards.
abstract: Operant conditioning is often used to train a desired behavior in an animal. The contingency between a specific behavior and a reward is required for successful training. Here, we compared the effectiveness of two different mazes for training turning behaviors in response to directional cues in Sprague-Dawley rats. Forty-three rats were implanted with electrodes into the medial forebrain bundle and the left and right somatosensory cortices for reward and cues. Among them, thirteen rats discriminated between the left and right somatosensory stimulations to obtain rewards. They were trained to learn ipsilateral turning response to the stimulation of the left or right somatosensory cortex in either the T-maze (Group T) or the E| maze (Group W). Performance was measured by the navigation speed in the mazes. Performances of rats in Group T were enhanced faster than those in Group W. A significant correlation between performances during training and performance in final testing was observed in Group T starting with the fifth training session while such a correlation was not observed in Group W until the tenth training session. The training mazes did not however affect the performances in the final test. These results suggest that a simple maze is better than a complicated maze for training animals to learn directions and direct cortical stimulation can be used as a cue for direction training.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, 2-101 Yongin-dong, Daegu, Republic of Korea. mglee@knu.ac.kr
authors.forename: Maan-Gee
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Gayoung
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Jun
authors.forename: Hyo-Soon
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.forename: Hwan Soo
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.forename: Yong Chul
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Bae
authors.forename: Kyoungho
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Suk
authors.forename: Il-Sung
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Jang
authors.forename: Byung-Ju
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Choi
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology*; D003463:Cues; D004558:Electric Stimulation; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D008027:Light; D008124:Locomotion / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology; D008474:Medial Forebrain Bundle / Q000502:physiology; D017397:Prefrontal Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012201:Reward; D012653:Self Stimulation; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology