The active place avoidance task is a dry-arena task used to assess spatial navigation and memory in rodents. In this task, a subject is put on a rotating circular arena and avoids an invisible sector that is stable in relation to the room. Rotation of the arena means that the subject's avoidance must be active, otherwise the subject will be moved in the to-be-avoided sector by the rotation of the arena and a slight electric shock will be administered. The present experiment explored the effect of variable arena rotation speed on the ability to avoid the to-be-avoided sector. Subjects in a group with variable arena rotation speed learned to avoid the sector with the same speed and attained the same avoidance ability as rats in a group with a stable arena rotation speed. Only a slight difference in preferred position within the room was found between the two groups. No difference was found between the two groups in the dark phase, where subjects could not use orientation cues in the room. Only one rat was able to learn the avoidance of the to-be-avoided sector in this phase. The results of the experiment suggest that idiothetic orientation and interval timing are not crucial for learning avoidance of the to-be-avoided sector. However, idiothetic orientation might be sufficient for avoiding the sector in the dark.

Department of Neurophysiology of Memory Institute of Physiology Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Prague Czech Republic

Department of Neurophysiology of Memory Institute of Physiology Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Prague Czech Republic ; Department of Psychology University of Würzburg Würzburg Germany

Zobrazit více v PubMed

Abdel Baki SG, Kao H-Y, Kelemen E, Fenton AA, Bergold PJ. A hierarchy of neurobehavioral tasks discriminates between mild and moderate brain injury in rats. Brain Research. 2009;1280:98–106. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2009.05.034. PubMed DOI

Baguley T. Serious stats: a guide to advanced statistics for the behavioral sciences. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan; 2012.

Bahník Š. Carousel maze manager. (Version 0.4.0) 2014 [Software]. Available at https://github.com/bahniks/CM_Manager_0_4_0 .

Balci F, Meck WH, Moore H, Brunner D. Timing deficits in aging and neuropathology. In: Bizon JL, Wood A, editors. Animal models of human cognitive aging. Totowa: Humana Press; 2009. pp. 161–201.

Blahna K, Svoboda J, Telensky P, Klement D. Inertial stimuli generated by arena rotation are important for acquisition of the active place avoidance task. Behavioural Brain Research. 2011;216:207–213. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2010.07.038. PubMed DOI

Buhusi CV, Meck WH. What makes us tick? Functional and neural mechanisms of interval timing. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2005;6:755–765. doi: 10.1038/nrn1764. PubMed DOI

Bures J, Fenton AA, Kaminsky Yu, Rossier J, Sacchetti B, Zinyuk L. Dissociation of exteroceptive and idiothetic orientation cues: effect on hippocampal place cells and place navigation. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 1997;352:1515–1524. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1997.0138. PubMed DOI PMC

Bures J, Fenton AA, Kaminsky Yu, Wesierska M, Zahalka A. Rodent navigation after dissociation of the allocenthric and idiothetic representations of space. Neuropharmacology. 1998;37:689–699. doi: 10.1016/S0028-3908(98)00031-8. PubMed DOI

Burghardt NS, Park EH, Hen R, Fenton AA. Adult-born hippocampal neurons promote cognitive flexibility in mice. Hippocampus. 2012;22:1795–1808. doi: 10.1002/hipo.22013. PubMed DOI PMC

Button KS, Ioannidis JPA, Mokrysz C, Nosek BA, Flint J, Robinson ESJ, Munafò MR. Power failure: why small sample size undermines the reliability of neuroscience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience. 2013;14:365–376. doi: 10.1038/nrn3475. PubMed DOI

Cimadevilla JM, Fenton AA, Bures J. New spatial cognition tests for mice: passive place avoidance on stable and active place avoidance on rotating arenas. Brain Research Bulletin. 2001;54:559–563. doi: 10.1016/S0361-9230(01)00448-8. PubMed DOI

Cimadevilla JM, Kaminsky Yu, Fenton AA, Bures J. Passive and active place avoidance as a tool of spatial memory research in rats. Journal of Neuroscience Methods. 2000;102:155–164. doi: 10.1016/S0165-0270(00)00288-0. PubMed DOI

Coull JT, Cheng R-K, Meck WH. Neuroanatomical and neurochemical substrates of timing. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2011;36:3–25. doi: 10.1038/npp.2010.113. PubMed DOI PMC

Fajnerova I, Kenney J, Lobellova V, Okrouhlicova S, Stuchlik A, Klement D. Can rats solve the active place avoidance task without the room-bound cues? Behavioural Brain Research. 2014;267:126–132. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2014.03.028. PubMed DOI

Fenton AA, Wesierska M, Kaminsky Yu, Bures J. Both here and there: simultaneous expressions of autonomous spatial memories in rats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 1998;95:11493–11498. doi: 10.1073/pnas.95.19.11493. PubMed DOI PMC

Haber M, Abdel Baki SG, Grin’kina NM, Irizarry R, Ershova A, Orsi S, Grill RJ, Dash P, Bergold PJ. Minocycline plus N-acetylcysteine synergize to modulate inflammation and prevent cognitive and memory deficits in a rat model of mild traumatic brain injury. Experimental Neurology. 2013;249:169–177. doi: 10.1016/j.expneurol.2013.09.002. PubMed DOI

Kelemen E, Fenton AA. Dynamic grouping of hippocampal neural activity during cognitive control of two spatial frames. PLoS Biology. 2010;8:e1257. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000403. PubMed DOI PMC

Klement D, Levcik D, Duskova L, Nekovarova T. Spatial task for rats testing position recognition of an object displayed on a computer screen. Behavioural Brain Research. 2010;207:480–489. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2009.10.041. PubMed DOI

Kubik S, Stuchlik A, Fenton AA. Evidence for hippocampal role in place avoidance other than merely memory storage. Physiological Research. 2006;55:445–452. PubMed

Lee H, Dvorak D, Fenton AA. Targeting neural synchrony deficits is sufficient to improve cognition in a schizophrenia-related neurodevelopmental model. Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2014;5 doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00015. Article 15. PubMed DOI PMC

Lobellova V, Entlerova M, Svojanovska B, Hatalova H, Prokopova I, Petrasek T, Vales K, Kubik S, Fajnerova I, Stuchlik A. Two learning tasks provide evidence for disrupted behavioural flexibility in an animal model of schizophrenia-like behaviour induced by acute MK-801: a dose–response study. Behavioural Brain Research. 2013;246:55–62. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2013.03.006. PubMed DOI

Mauk MD, Buonomano DV. The neural basis of temporal processing. Annual Review of Neuroscience. 2004;27:307–340. doi: 10.1146/annurev.neuro.27.070203.144247. PubMed DOI

Mittelstaedt ML, Glasauer S. Idiothetic navigation in gerbils and humans. Zoologische Jahrbucher Abteilung fuer Allgemeine Zoologie und Physiologie der Tiere. 1991;95:427–435.

Mittelstaedt ML, Mittelstaedt H. Homing by path integration in a mammal. Naturwissenschaften. 1980;67:566–567. doi: 10.1007/BF00450672. DOI

Petrasek T, Prokopova I, Bahnik S, Schonig K, Berger S, Vales K, Tews B, Schwab ME, Bartsch D, Stuchlik A. Nogo-A downregulation impairs place avoidance in the Carousel maze but not spatial memory in the Morris water maze. Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. 2014a;107:42–49. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2013.10.015. PubMed DOI

Petrasek T, Prokopova I, Sladek M, Weissova K, Vojtechova I, Bahnik S, Zemanova A, Schönig K, Berger S, Tews B, Bartsch D, Schwab ME, Sumova A, Stuchlik A. Nogo-A-deficient transgenic rats show deficits in higher cognitive functions, decreased anxiety, and altered circadian activity patterns. Frontiers in Behavioural Neuroscience. 2014b;8 doi: 10.3389/fnbeh.2014.00090. Article 90. PubMed DOI PMC

Popp SS, Lei B, Kelemen E, Fenton AA, Cottrell JE, Kass IS. Intravenous antiarrhythmic doses of lidocaine increase the survival rate of CA1 neurons and improve cognitive outcome after transient global cerebral ischemia in rats. Neuroscience. 2011;192:537–549. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroscience.2011.06.086. PubMed DOI

Prokopova I, Bahnik S, Doulames V, Vales K, Petrasek T, Svoboda J, Stuchlik A. Synergistic effects of dopamine D2-like receptor antagonist sulpiride and beta-blocker propranolol on learning in the Carousel maze, a dry-land spatial navigation task. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior. 2012;102:151–156. doi: 10.1016/j.pbb.2012.04.003. PubMed DOI

R Development Core Team . R: a language and environment for statistical computing. Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing; 2011.

Rambousek L, Bubenikova-Valesova V, Kacer P, Syslova K, Kenney J, Holubova K, Najmanova V, Zach P, Svoboda J, Stuchlik A, et al. Cellular and behavioural effects of a new steroidal inhibitor of the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor 3α5β-pregnanolone glutamate. Neuropharmacology. 2011;61:61–68. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropharm.2011.02.018. PubMed DOI

Stuchlik A, Petrasek T, Prokopova I, Holubova K, Hatalova H, Vales K, Kubik S, Dockery C, Wesierska M. Place avoidance tasks as tools in the behavioral neuroscience of learning and memory. Physiological Research. 2013;62:1–19. PubMed

Stuchlik A, Petrasek T, Vales K. Dopamine D2 receptors and alpha1-adrenoceptors synergistically modulate locomotion and behavior of rats in a place avoidance task. Behavioural Brain Research. 2008;189:139–144. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2007.12.025. PubMed DOI

Stuchlik A, Rehakova L, Rambousek L, Svoboda J, Vales K. Manipulation of D2 receptors with quinpirole and sulpiride affects locomotor activity before spatial behavior of rats in an active place avoidance task. Neuroscience Research. 2007;58:133–139. doi: 10.1016/j.neures.2007.02.006. PubMed DOI

Stuchlik A, Rezacova L, Vales K, Bubenikova V, Kubik S. Application of a novel Active Allothetic Place Avoidance task (AAPA) in testing a pharmacological model of psychosis in rats: comparison with the Morris Water Maze. Neuroscience Letters. 2004;366:162–166. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2004.05.037. PubMed DOI

Vukovic J, Borlikova GG, Ruitenberg MJ, Robinson GJ, Sullivan RK, Walker TL, Bartlett PF. Immature doublecortin-positive hippocampal neurons are important for learning but not for remembering. Journal of Neuroscience. 2013;33:6603–6613. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3064-12.2013. PubMed DOI PMC

Wallace DG, Marting MM, Winter SS. Fractioning dead reckoning: role of the compass, odometer, logbook, and home base establishment in spatial orientation. Naturwissenschaften. 2008;95:1011–1026. doi: 10.1007/s00114-008-0410-z. PubMed DOI PMC

Zemanova A, Stankova A, Lobellova V, Svoboda J, Vales K, Vlcek K, Kubik S, Fajnerova I, Stuchlik A. Visuospatial working memory is impaired in an animal model of schizophrenia induced by acute MK-801: an effect of pretraining. Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior. 2013;106:117–123. doi: 10.1016/j.pbb.2013.03.014. PubMed DOI