Adult neurogenesis alters response to an aversive distractor in a labyrinth maze without affecting spatial learning or memory.

ABSTRACT: Adult neurogenesis has been implicated in learning and memory of complex spatial environments. However, new neurons also play a role in nonmnemonic behavior, including the stress response and attention shifting. Many commonly used spatial tasks are very simple, and unsuitable for detecting neurogenesis effects, or are aversively motivated, making it difficult to dissociate effects on spatial learning and memory from effects on stress. We have therefore created a novel complex spatial environment, the flex maze, to enable reward-mediated testing of spatial learning in a flexibly configurable labyrinth. Using a pharmacogenetic method to completely inhibit neurogenesis in adulthood, we found that rats lacking new neurons (TK rats) and wild type controls completed and remembered most mazes equ

SUBMITTER: Schoenfeld TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8381641 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature