An examination of place cells in the hippocampus in the delay box and the goal box during performance of a black/white alley discrimination task acquired with a delay of reinforcement

Barry, Jeremy M. (2001) An examination of place cells in the hippocampus in the delay box and the goal box during performance of a black/white alley discrimination task acquired with a delay of reinforcement. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The hippocampus is important in spatial navigation in rodents. Less clear is the relationship between the cognitive map of physical space, and task requirements that take place within that space. This study addresses the issue by recording pyramidal cells of the hippocampal CA1 region as animals perform the Lawrence and Homel (1969) discrimination task. Proceeding from a start box, animals made a choice to run down either a black or white alley, which led to a grey delay box. Following a brief delay, animals entered the goal box to receive a reward for a correct alley choice. Although the goal box always occupied the same physical space, the colour varied with reward contingency in the experimental group. I hypothesized that animals would have two representations of the delay box, one based on anticipatory reward, and the other not. Results indicated that the animals had differential representations of the goal boxes, and that they viewed the delay box as a constant space.

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