A new paradigm to analyze observational learning in rats
L. Mandolesi1,3, M.G. Leggio2,3, F. Federico2,3 and L. Petrosini2,3
1Department of Studies of Institutions and Territorial
Systems, University of Naples Parthenope, Italy
2Department of Psychology, University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy
3IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia, Rome, Italy
Neuroimaging studies demonstrated that observation of movements performed
by others,
imagination of actions and actual execution of motor performances share
common neural
substrates and that the cerebellum is among these shared areas. Experimental
evidence
demonstrated that cerebellar networks are involved in spatial learning,
controlling in
particular the acquisition of exploration strategies without blocking
motor execution
of the task. On such a basis, we developed a new paradigm of observational
learning to
analyze the effects of observation in learning a spatial task, focusing
the cerebellar role in
learning a spatial ability by observation. Observer animals were separately
housed in small
cages suspended over a water maze tank. They repeatedly observed companion
actor rats
performing spatial tasks differing according to the experimental requirements.
After the
observational training, observer animals were hemicerebellectomized to
block further
acquisition of new navigational strategies during actual performance of
swimming task.
When cerebellar symptomatology stabilized, observers were actually tested
in the Morris
Water Maze task they had previously observed. Observers displayed exploration
abilities
closely matching the previously observed behaviours, indicating that they
did learn complex
navigational strategies by observation. Interestingly, whether the cerebellar
lesion preceded
observation training, complete lack of spatial observational learning
was observed. As
already demonstrated for the acquisition of spatial procedures through
actual execution,
cerebellar circuits appear to play a key role in the acquisition of spatial
procedures also
through observation. Furthermore, the present protocol allowing to split
a complex spatial
behaviour into the single behavioral units forming the complete procedural
sequence,
demonstrated that such behavioral units do exist and can be independently
acquired.
Furthermore, this new paradigm has the potentials to answer the question
whether the
split behavioral units are really the most simple ones, or whether it
is possible to continue
breaking up a complex behavior into simpler and simpler components until
the quark of a
complex behavior is reached.
Paper presented
at Measuring Behavior 2005
, 5th International Conference on Methods and Techniques
in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The
Netherlands.
© 2005 Noldus
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