Data Archive of the Animal
Cognition Lab
University of Georgia
Catalog Number: 0005
Title: Spatial navigation on the radial maze with trial-unique intramaze cues and restricted extramaze cues
Reference: Babb, S.J. & Crystal, J.D. (2003). Spatial navigation on the radial maze with trial-unique intramaze cues and restricted extramaze cues. Behavioural Processes, 64, 103-111
Note: These data were reported as Experiment 1 by Babb & Crystal (2003). Training was conducted in sessions 36-45. Randomized blocks of testing mixed with training were conducted in sessions 46-69 (rotation tests were conducted on 56, 60, 64, and 66; non-rewarded control tests were conducted on sessions 49, 52, 62, and 68; all other sessions were baseline training; a programming error occurred on session 46). Testing with orientation controls was conducted on sessions 168-172 (probe testing was conducted on session 172).
Subjects
Five male
Long Evans rats were obtained from Harlan (Madison, WI). The animals were individually
housed in a colony with
Apparatus
Testing was conducted in an eight-arm radial maze. The central hub consisted of a white polypropylene octagonal base (28.6 cm in diameter, 11.4 cm sides), metal walls (33.3 cm high), and a clear polycarbonate lid (MED Associates, ENV-538). The arms radiated from the center hub with equal spacing between each arm. Each arm was 76.2 cm long and 8.9 cm wide with clear polycarbonate walls (17.5 cm high), and topped with strips of polycarbonate. The central maze was equipped with eight computer-controlled guillotine doors (MED Associates, ENV-540). A food trough (MED Associates, ENV-200R1M) was placed at the end of each arm. A photobeam (MED Associates, ENV-254) was placed 1 cm inside each food trough (1 cm from the trough bottom) to detect head entries. A 45-mg pellet dispenser (MED Associates, ENV-203) was placed behind each food trough. Additional photobeams were located in each arm at 3.8 and 5.1 cm from the guillotine doors.
The maze was positioned inside an octagonal enclosure. An octagonal frame (298 cm in diameter), consisting of PVC tubing (130 cm long), was suspended from the ceiling with wires. Blackout draper liners (264 x 203 cm) were hung from the frame to limit extramaze cues. The maze was positioned on stools 81.3 cm above the floor. To minimize outside noise, white noise was played at 67 db from a speaker located in the ceiling above the hub. A 500-MHz computer in an adjacent room, running MED-PC for Windows (Version 1.15), controlled experimental events (guillotine doors and food) and recorded the data (photobeam breaks) with 10-msec resolution. A video camera was positioned in the ceiling above the center of the maze to enable the experimenter to observe the rats from an adjacent room.
Six hundred and forty-eight objects varying in size, shape (approximately 7 x 7 cm), color, and material were collected. The objects mostly consisted of small toys and miscellaneous objects. They were randomly placed into nine subsets of 72 objects each. On each day, eight objects were randomly sampled from the current subset. Objects from the next subset were sampled on successive days; this arrangement ensured that the probability of repeating objects was low. An object was suspended at the end of each arm from the polycarbonate tops of the arms, 10.2 cm from the food trough with metal chains.
Procedure
Pretraining
Pretraining consisted of three days
in which four pellets (Noyes Precision pellets, Improved Formula A/I, Research
Diets, Inc.,
Training
During initial training, the rats were individually placed in the central hub beginning at 0900; all 8 doors were then opened. The session ended when the animals had depleted all arms or ten minutes had elapsed. Data from two subjects on 1-2 days were excluded due to programming error. Training was conducted once per day for 10 days.
Testing
For the remainder of the study, testing consisted of two shifts per day for each rat. The rats were individually placed in the maze beginning at 0900 for Phase 1, four doors (randomly selected for each rat) were then opened, and the rat was required to visit each arm to obtain a pellet at each of these arms; one of these arms was randomly selected each day to be baited with chocolate, and the remaining arms were baited with regular pellets. (The use of chocolate pellets is not related to the experiment reported here.) The pellet was delivered to the food trough contingent on the first interruption of the photobeam located in the food trough. After a retention interval of one hour, each rat was individually returned to the maze, and all eight doors were then opened. The four arms that were not available in Phase 1 were scheduled to provide regular food in Phase 2. A new configuration of eight objects was randomly selected on each day to provide intramaze cues.
Testing consisted of 24 sessions containing three conditions: (a) baseline, (b) non-rewarded control, and (c) rotation. Conditions were arranged in random order with the constraints that each three-session block consisted of one test (rotation or non-rewarded control) condition and two baseline conditions, at least one baseline session separated test conditions, and the number of rotation and non-rewarded control conditions was equal. The baseline condition was identical to the testing described above (i.e., the objects were not rotated and the unvisited locations from Phase 1 provided pellets in Phase 2). The non-rewarded control condition was identical to the baseline condition, except that no pellets were provided in Phase 2. In the rotation condition, the objects were rotated 180º between Phase 1 and Phase 2, and no pellets were provided in Phase 2. The four arms that were available in Phase 1 were randomly sampled with the constraint that the arm that was 180º away from it was closed during Phase 1; therefore, each arm during Phase 2 could be designated as “correct” with respect to intramaze or extramaze cues during testing with rotated objects. One baseline session is missing because of a programming error.
Throughout the experiment, the arms
of the maze were wiped down with a diluted solution of Nolvasan Solution (Fort
Dodge Animal Health,
Testing
with orientation controls
The following procedures for Phases 1 and 2 were designed to control for directional ‘heading’ and orientation cues for each rat: (a) the entrance to the maze area through the blackout curtains was randomly chosen from four entrances; (b) the rat was placed in a cage that was attached to a turntable, positioned in one of eight random locations on the floor near the maze; (c) the cage was spun rapidly either two or three times (randomly determined); each spinning episode produced several rapid rotations of the cage that lasted several seconds before the next spinning episode; when the rats were removed from the cage after the completion of spinning, they appeared disoriented and were relatively immobile while being picked up, carried to the maze, and placed inside the hub; (d) the rat was carried to the left of a randomly chosen arm; (e) the rat was placed inside the hub of the maze, facing a randomly chosen door; and (f) the experimenter picked up the cage and turntable and exited the enclosure through one of four randomly chosen exits.
Baseline testing was the same as described above in Testing except (a) the orientation control procedures described above were added, (b) the retention interval was 45 minutes, and (c) baseline testing was conducted on 4 consecutive days after the rats had completed the procedure described above and an additional 96 sessions in an experiment with a similar training procedure that did not use objects.
A probe test occurred immediately after baseline testing with orientation control procedures was completed. Probe testing was the same as described above in Testing except (a) the orientation control procedures described above were added and (b) the retention interval was 45 minutes. Three values from baseline testing are missing because of a programming error.
FILE NAME CONVENTION
AND FORMAT
File names: Each file name contains the experiment, shift number, rat number, and session with ‘TEF’ in the file name to indicate time-event format. The following values were used for naming the files:
Experiment: HH
Shifts: 0-2
Rat numbers: 01-05
Sessions: 036 – 069 and ZZZ – ZZZ.
Shift number refers to the training condition. Shift 0 indicates that a single session was conducted each day. Shift 1 corresponds to the initial forced-choice phase on a given day. Shifts 2 corresponds to the subsequent free-choice phase on a given after a retention interval. Some sessions have shift 0 and other sessions have shifts 1 and 2.
For example, Rat #4 in shift 2 of session 46 would have the file name: HH204TEF.046
File format: Each text file contains three tab-delimited columns. Column 1 contains the time stamp (in seconds). Column 2 contains an event code (a number that represents a stimulus, response, or stage of the procedure). Column 3 contains an event name (a label for the event code number). The list of event code numbers and event names appear in a file labeled HH.DAT (which is included in the files that appears in the download). The time stamps are cumulative times since the start of each session (the start is issued just after placing the animal in the maze. For example, a row in the file might contain the following:
120.39 <tab> 101 <tab> Arm1_A_Onset
This indicates that at 120.39 seconds after the start of the session, the “A” photobeam on Arm 1 was interrupted.
EVENT CODES
Available Responses:
|
101 |
Arm1_A_Onset |
|
102 |
Arm1_B_Onset |
|
103 |
Arm2_A_Onset |
|
104 |
Arm2_B_Onset |
|
105 |
Arm3_A_Onset |
|
106 |
Arm3_B_Onset |
|
107 |
Arm4_A_Onset |
|
108 |
Arm4_B_Onset |
|
109 |
Arm5_A_Onset |
|
110 |
Arm5_B_Onset |
|
111 |
Arm6_A_Onset |
|
112 |
Arm6_B_Onset |
|
113 |
Arm7_A_Onset |
|
114 |
Arm7_B_Onset |
|
115 |
Arm8_A_Onset |
|
116 |
Arm8_B_Onset |
|
201 |
Arm1_A_Offset |
|
202 |
Arm1_B_Offset |
|
203 |
Arm2_A_Offset |
|
204 |
Arm2_B_Offset |
|
205 |
Arm3_A_Offset |
|
206 |
Arm3_B_Offset |
|
207 |
Arm4_A_Offset |
|
208 |
Arm4_B_Offset |
|
209 |
Arm5_A_Offset |
|
210 |
Arm5_B_Offset |
|
211 |
Arm6_A_Offset |
|
212 |
Arm6_B_Offset |
|
213 |
Arm7_A_Offset |
|
214 |
Arm7_B_Offset |
|
215 |
Arm8_A_Offset |
|
216 |
Arm8_B_Offset |
|
17 |
Arm1_HD |
|
18 |
Arm2_HD |
|
19 |
Arm3_HD |
|
20 |
Arm4_HD |
|
21 |
Arm5_HD |
|
22 |
Arm6_HD |
|
23 |
Arm7_HD |
|
24 |
Arm8_HD |
Available Stimuli:
|
41 |
Arm1_DR_ON |
|
42 |
Arm2_DR_ON |
|
43 |
Arm3_DR_ON |
|
44 |
Arm4_DR_ON |
|
45 |
Arm5_DR_ON |
|
46 |
Arm6_DR_ON |
|
47 |
Arm7_DR_ON |
|
48 |
Arm8_DR_ON |
|
49 |
Arm1_Food_ON |
|
50 |
Arm2_Food_ON |
|
51 |
Arm3_Food_ON |
|
52 |
Arm4_Food_ON |
|
53 |
Arm5_Food_ON |
|
54 |
Arm6_Food_ON |
|
55 |
Arm7_Food_ON |
|
56 |
Arm8_Food_ON |
|
61 |
Arm1_DR_OFF |
|
62 |
Arm2_DR_OFF |
|
63 |
Arm3_DR_OFF |
|
64 |
Arm4_DR_OFF |
|
65 |
Arm5_DR_OFF |
|
66 |
Arm6_DR_OFF |
|
67 |
Arm7_DR_OFF |
|
68 |
Arm8_DR_OFF |
|
69 |
Arm1_Food_OFF |
|
70 |
Arm2_Food_OFF |
|
71 |
Arm3_Food_OFF |
|
72 |
Arm4_Food_OFF |
|
73 |
Arm5_Food_OFF |
|
74 |
Arm6_Food_OFF |
|
75 |
Arm7_Food_OFF |
|
76 |
Arm8_Food_OFF |
|
309 |
PelletTimer |
|
310 |
FeederOff |
|
321 |
Open4DR |
|
322 |
OpenAllDR |
|
323 |
CloseAllDR |
|
324 |
Close4DR |
|
325 |
Close1DR |
Other Events:
|
319 |
StartTest |
|
|
332 |
StateEndSes |
|
NOTE: HD and DR stand for Head Detector in the food trough and Door, respectively. A and B photobeams are located 3.8 and 5.1 cm from the guillotine doors, respectively, on each arm. An event with “Onset” or “Offset” indicates the time of first and final interruption of the photobeams, respectively.
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Last updated 26 August 2003
