Behav Brain Res. 2014 Jan 1;258:208-17. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2013.10.009.
Human and non-human animals exhibit a variety of response strategies (e.g., place responding) when searching for a familiar place or evading predators. We still know little about the conditions that support the use of each strategy. We trained rats to locate a hidden food reward in a small-scale spatial search task. The complexity of the search task was manipulated by reducing the number of search locations (25, 4, and 2) within an open-field apparatus and by comparison to a path-based apparatus (plus-maze). After rats were trained to reliably locate the hidden food, each apparatus was shifted to gauge whether rats were searching at the location of the goal relative to extramaze cues (i.e., place responding), or searching in the direction of the goal relative to a combination of intramaze and extramaze cues (i.e.,directional responding). The results indicate that the open field supported place responding when more than two response locations were present, whereas, the four-arm plus-maze supported strong directional responding. These results extend prior research into the role of task demands on search strategy, as well as support the use of the four-choice open field as an analog to the Morris water task for future studies targeting the neural underpinnings of place responding.
人类和非人类动物在寻找熟悉的地方或躲避捕食者时，会表现出各种反应策略（例如，位置反应）。我们仍然不太了解支持每种策略使用的条件。我们训练大鼠在小规模空间搜索任务中找到隐藏的食物奖励。通过减少开放式设备中的搜索位置数量（25、4 和 2）以及与基于路径的设备（加迷宫）进行比较，来操纵搜索任务的复杂性。在大鼠被训练可靠地找到隐藏的食物后，每个设备都会发生变化，以确定大鼠是相对于外部提示（即位置反应）在目标位置进行搜索，还是相对于内部和外部提示的组合（即方向反应）朝着目标方向进行搜索。结果表明，当存在两个以上的反应位置时，开放式场支持位置反应，而四臂加迷宫则支持强烈的方向反应。这些结果扩展了先前关于任务要求对搜索策略的作用的研究，并且支持将四选择开放式场用作未来针对位置反应神经基础的研究的莫里斯水任务的模拟。
