Pearson D E, Raskin L A, Shaywitz B A, Anderson G M, Cohen D J
Dev Psychobiol. 1984 Sep;17(5):505-17. doi: 10.1002/dev.420170508.
Neonatal dopamine (DA) depletion produces learning impairments both during development and throughout adulthood in the rat. The present experiment further investigated the memory capabilities of the dopamine-depleted rat by assessing performance in the radial arm maze. Results showed that, following neonatal injection of 6-hydroxydopamine and desmethylimipramine, lesioned rats per-performed more accurately than controls. In this paradigm, DA-depleted rats tended to enter each arm to obtain a food pellet and not enter unbaited, incorrect arms. The difference in performance of control and treated rats could not be accounted for by differences in locomotor activity, body weights, or motivational factors. A computer analysis of the data revealed that DA-depleted animals adopted a strategy of choosing adjacent arms consecutively, which probably accounted for their superior performance. Results are discussed in terms using algorithms versus extra-maze cues to complete the maze following early brain injury.
新生大鼠多巴胺（DA）耗竭会在发育过程中以及成年后的整个阶段导致学习障碍。本实验通过评估放射状臂迷宫中的表现，进一步研究了多巴胺耗竭大鼠的记忆能力。结果显示，新生大鼠注射6-羟基多巴胺和去甲丙咪嗪后，损伤大鼠的表现比对照组更准确。在这个范式中，多巴胺耗竭的大鼠倾向于进入每个臂以获取食物颗粒，而不会进入未放置诱饵的错误臂。对照大鼠和处理大鼠在运动活动、体重或动机因素方面的差异无法解释它们在表现上的差异。对数据的计算机分析表明，多巴胺耗竭的动物采用了连续选择相邻臂的策略，这可能是它们表现优异的原因。我们从使用算法与迷宫外部线索来完成早期脑损伤后迷宫任务的角度对结果进行了讨论。
