title: The appetitively motivated "cognitive" holeboard: a family of complex spatial discrimination tasks for assessing learning and memory.
abstract: Spatial learning and memory tasks have captured a solid position in neuroscience research. A variety of holeboard-type tasks are suitable for investigating the effects of a broad range of experimental manipulations on spatial learning and memory in a broad range of species, including fish, rodents, cats, pigs, tupaias, and humans. We summarize the concepts and procedures underlying tests of spatial discrimination learning, with special emphasis on holeboard-type tasks and task-specific characteristics. Holeboard-type tasks enable a broad range of mnemonic and cognitive variables to be measured in parallel, including cognitive processes such as habituation processes, spatial working and reference memory, and search strategies, but also non-cognitive variables, such as exploration, anxiety-related behavior, and stereotypies. These tasks are sensitive to a large number of naturally occurring differences (e.g. strain differences and age effects) and to the effects of non-genetic (e.g. specific brain lesions, stress, treatment with cognition impairers or cognition enhancers) and genetic experimental manipulations. In conclusion, holeboard-type tasks provide powerful tools to investigate multiple aspects of spatial orientation behavior in the same experimental setup. Cross-species comparison of holeboard performance shows the potential for translational studies.
authors.affiliation: Program Emotion & Cognition, Department of Farm Animal Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80151, 3508 TD Utrecht, The Netherlands. F.J.vanderStaay@UU.NL
authors.forename: F Josef
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: van der Staay
authors.forename: Elise T
authors.initials: ET
authors.lastname: Gieling
authors.forename: Nathaly Espitia
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: Pinzón
authors.forename: Rebecca E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Nordquist
authors.forename: Frauke
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ohl
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D002415:Cats; D004193:Discrimination Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D005106:Exploratory Behavior; D006801:Humans; D018782:Maze Learning; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009042:Motivation; D013028:Space Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D013037:Spatial Behavior / Q000502:physiology