A behavioral task for investigating action discovery, selection and switching: comparison between types of reinforcer.

ABSTRACT: Action discovery and selection are critical cognitive processes that are understudied at the cellular and systems neuroscience levels. Presented here is a new rodent joystick task suitable to test these processes due to the range of action possibilities that can be learnt while performing the task. Rats learned to manipulate a joystick while progressing through task milestones that required increasing degrees of movement accuracy. In a switching phase designed to measure action discovery, rats were repeatedly required to discover new target positions to meet changing task demands. Behavior was compared using both food and electrical brain stimulation reward (BSR) of the substantia nigra as reinforcement. Rats reinforced with food and those with BSR performed similarly overall, although BSR

SUBMITTER: Fisher SD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4235381 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature