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Visual discrimination by C57BL/6J mice in water maze tasks

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Date Issued:
2008
Summary:
When interpreting how an animal "learns" discrimination tasks, strain capabilities must be considered, and it should be shown that they comprehend the task in a manner consistent with the given interpretation. A novel visual-discrimination (VD) task for relative-size-relations was used to examine visual cue use in C57BL/6J mice, which are shown to have biologically good vision and neurologically intact memory for VD tasks. Results suggest C57BL/6J strain may not be fully capable of relative cue-size associations or even object recognition-based on a water maze VD task. This is in contrast to previous studies suggesting this mice strain is quite strong in visual skills and on VD tasks. Additionally, cue size and/or cue-pairings do appear to influence specific directional preferences or stereotyped behaviors as trainings continued, and these strategies shifted during novel probes. Future studies should assess how mice discriminate between objects and test rat's capabilities on this task.
Title: Visual discrimination by C57BL/6J mice in water maze tasks: does size really matter?.
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Name(s): Buerger, Eric D.
Charles E. Schmidt College of Science
Department of Psychology
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Date Issued: 2008
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Physical Form: electronic
Extent: [viii], 147 p. : ill. (some col.).
Language(s): English
Summary: When interpreting how an animal "learns" discrimination tasks, strain capabilities must be considered, and it should be shown that they comprehend the task in a manner consistent with the given interpretation. A novel visual-discrimination (VD) task for relative-size-relations was used to examine visual cue use in C57BL/6J mice, which are shown to have biologically good vision and neurologically intact memory for VD tasks. Results suggest C57BL/6J strain may not be fully capable of relative cue-size associations or even object recognition-based on a water maze VD task. This is in contrast to previous studies suggesting this mice strain is quite strong in visual skills and on VD tasks. Additionally, cue size and/or cue-pairings do appear to influence specific directional preferences or stereotyped behaviors as trainings continued, and these strategies shifted during novel probes. Future studies should assess how mice discriminate between objects and test rat's capabilities on this task.
Identifier: 315850676 (oclc), 165670 (digitool), FADT165670 (IID), fau:2815 (fedora)
Note(s): by Eric D. Buerger.
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2008.
Includes bibliography.
Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2008. Mode of access: World Wide Web.
Subject(s): Visual discrimination
Form perception
Animal behavior -- Simulation methods
Animals -- Adaptation -- Simulation methods
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/FAU/165670
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU