Means L W, Alexander S R, O'Neal M F
Department of Psychology, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858.
Behav Neural Biol. 1992 Sep;58(2):144-51. doi: 10.1016/0163-1047(92)90387-j.
Three-month-old Sprague-Dawley rats were trained on a working memory win-stay (spatial delayed matching-to-sample) water-escape task with the escape platform location the same for all subjects on a given trial, a procedure that maximizes the buildup of an odor trail to the escape platform. In subsequent tests during which the location of the escape platform varied randomly between subjects, the rats, especially the females, while continuing to perform above chance level, made increased errors. Varying the platform location between subjects eliminated odor trail as a nonambiguous cue for locating the escape platform. In a second experiment females performed better than males on a reference memory odor trail discrimination task which involved following the path of like-gender "pathmaker" rats to the escape platform. The relatively poor use of odor trails by the males was associated with a high frequency of choosing a preferred choice section or returning to the choice section selected first on the immediately preceding trial (perseveration). Collectively, the two experiments demonstrate that rats can use either working memory or odor trails to locate an escape platform in a water maze, and that they, especially females, will use odor trails in a working memory task if odor trails are available. Clearly, the location of the escape platform should be varied randomly between subjects in tests of working memory.
对3个月大的斯普拉格-道利大鼠进行工作记忆赢则停留（空间延迟样本匹配）水迷宫逃脱任务训练，在给定试验中，所有受试者的逃脱平台位置相同，此程序可最大程度地增加通往逃脱平台的气味痕迹积累。在随后的测试中，逃脱平台的位置在不同受试者之间随机变化，大鼠，尤其是雌性大鼠，虽然继续保持高于随机水平的表现，但错误增加。在不同受试者之间改变平台位置消除了气味痕迹作为定位逃脱平台的明确线索。在第二个实验中，雌性大鼠在参考记忆气味痕迹辨别任务上比雄性大鼠表现更好，该任务包括跟随同性别的“路径引导者”大鼠的路径到达逃脱平台。雄性大鼠对气味痕迹的利用相对较差，这与高频率选择偏好的选择区域或返回前一次试验中首先选择的选择区域（固执行为）有关。总体而言，这两个实验表明，大鼠可以使用工作记忆或气味痕迹在水迷宫中定位逃脱平台，并且如果有气味痕迹，它们，尤其是雌性大鼠，会在工作记忆任务中使用气味痕迹。显然，在工作记忆测试中，逃脱平台的位置应在不同受试者之间随机变化。
