Ontogenetic development of avoidance learning in rats after eye opening.

Five male and one female group of 8 pups were selected from 8 liters on the second postnatal day and returned to 6 dams. The animals were investigated in two subsequent tests; first, in a peripheral field avoidance test using a 60 x 75 x 22 cm open field subdivided into 20 equal squares of 15 x 15 cm with separate floor grids for electrical punishment and, second, in a W-like maze with a start arm falling into a common alley from which left and right each two goal arms branched off. Four qualities were measured in the first test: finding out that only central fields remained unpunished; the stay duration in central fields indicating passive avoidance; the response to a conditioned stimulus, when they entered peripheral fields indicating active avoidance; the quality of extinction. The differences of these qualities changed significantly from week to week as the acquisition speed and the consolidation increased, the extinction was rapid in the third week, very slow in the fourth week and adult-like in the fifth week. The self-chosen strategy of pups showed dominance of escape with subsequent motor inhibition in the third week, dominance of trials and active avoidance in the fourth week, dominance of passive avoidance in the fifth week. We found no difference between males and females, or between blind and control rats. The W-maze test revealed additionally that reversal learning from left goal to right goal was still difficult in the fourth week and that brightness-cued alteration of goals in which wrong choices were punished when a time limit was overcome could not be learned before the sixth week and not consolidated before the end of the seventh week. The results suggest that various brain processes are involved in the development of avoidance and learning strategies which mature unevenly and reach their peaks at different ages.