People who use rats in #SpatialCognition tasks, or decision-making tasks, which strain do you prefer? 🐀
(Ideally, please comment on why!)
(Multiple choices possible if you really have to)
Anyone knows of researchers that compare #Mice and #Rats behaviour (ideally in complex tasks)? It could be in #SpatialCognition but also in other fields. Papers that directly compare both species would also be great.
Old navigation papers always have hidden gems in them..
"This training period was marked by only two events of unusual interest. The first was an electric storm which occurred during the 18th trial. Thunder and lightning were almost incessant throughout this trial period. A large tree near the building was shattered by lightning. On this trial there was a great increase in average time, and a slight increase in the average number of errors. The other event, which occurred at the 22nd trial, was an unusually hot day-mercury at 103 F. The rats seemed almost overcome, and, upon being placed in the water, would float for a considerable length of time before starting to swim down the maze pathway. The average time was greatly increased. The errors, however, did not increase appreciably."
Source: The Rôle of Kinaesthesis in the Establishment and Control of the Maze Habit by Sol Evans, @johnwidloski pointed me to it
Please welcome the great @aheadofthenerve to Mastodon / the Fediverse! So nice to have another #PlaceCell #Neuroscientist on here 😁 (and also a #CalciumImaging expert)!
From: @aheadofthenerve
https://neuromatch.social/@aheadofthenerve/111767478048631695
I guess we do #introduction posts over here? I work on the #neuroscience (am I doing those hashtags right!?) of learning and memory, specifically how we learn while we navigate space and context. To do this, I take in vivo recordings (currently calcium imaging but ephys has my heart) of freely moving rats! After that, I use computational and mathematical approaches to analyze their neural activity! I am currently a BRAIN Initiative K99/R00 postdoc at Northwestern working with John Disterhoft and Sara Solla. I was trained at MIT with Matt Wilson, where I got my PhD in biology, and my BS is from Carnegie Mellon. Welcome!
Here’s a really cool and complete Review on the behaviour and (a little) electrophysiology of spontaneous #Exploration in #NeuroRats and #NeuroMice. It will tell you all about #HomeBases and #Excursions and their differences between rats and mice. Why am I seeing this just now?!
Behavioral and neural subsystems of rodent exploration
#Hippocampus #ClarkLab #Navigation
El Duvelle Neuro