- Title Information
- Title
- Sex- and light cycle-based differences in spontaneous object recognition
performance
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Udawatta, Methma
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- creator
- Name:
Personal
- Name Part
- Burwell, Rebecca
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- advisor
- affiliation
- Brown University. Department of Cognitive, Linguistic and Psychological
Sciences
- Name:
Corporate
- Name Part
- Brown University. Undergraduate Teaching and Research Award
- Role
- Role Term:
Text
- research program
- Type of Resource
- still image
- Genre (aat)
- posters
- Origin Information
- Place
- Place Term:
Text
- Providence
- Publisher
- Brown University
- Date Created
(encoding="w3cdtf")
- 2015-08-07
- Physical Description
- Extent
- 1 poster
- digitalOrigin
- reformatted digital
- Abstract
- The spontaneous object recognition (SOR) task is a test of recognition memory,
drawing on the innate tendency for rats to explore novel objects and images more than those
that are familiar. This task involves multiple brain areas including the perirhinal cortex
(PER), which is necessary for identifying novelty. While many studies support the role of
the PER in visual recognition memory, there are two common issues: only male rodents are
tested and they are only tested during the light phase.\n\nFemales are generally not used
for behavioral experiments due to the possible effects of circulating hormone levels.
Effects of sex differences on memory in rodents, however, have not been thoroughly
investigated. Whereas males often outperform females in spatial navigation tasks, females
often outperform males in fear conditioning tasks. Additionally, while rats are nocturnal
and demonstrate higher locomotor activity during their dark phase, most behavioral
experiments are run during the light phase. This leads to additional confounding variables
such as a lack of alertness or motivation during testing. To date, there have been no
studies on sex or light cycle differences in the SOR task. Therefore, we set out to
elucidate whether these differences existed. We tested six females in the light phase,
six males in the light phase, and six males in the dark phase on the SOR task. Our results
show that sex did not impact cognitive performance in the SOR task, but suggest that the
phase of the light cycle in which the rats were tested may impact recognition memory. Rats
tested during the light phase spent more time exploring the novel objects than the familiar
objects, resulting in a positive discrimination ratio. Rats tested during the dark phase,
however, spent equal time exploring the novel and familiar objects. The discrimination
ratios for rats tested in the light were not significantly different from those of the rats
tested during the dark, but a power analysis suggests these results would reach significance
if the number of subjects were doubled.
- Subject (LCSH)
- Topic
- Neurosciences
- Subject (LCSH)
- Topic
- Memory
- Subject (LCSH)
- Topic
- Daylight
- Identifier:
DOI
- 10.26300/df76-cz07