{"id":2663,"date":"2022-08-03T16:48:01","date_gmt":"2022-08-03T06:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cognav.net\/?p=2663"},"modified":"2022-08-03T16:48:01","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T06:48:01","slug":"whether-rats-can-learn-spaces-just-by-observation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/?p=2663","title":{"rendered":"Whether rats can learn spaces just by observation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Doublet T, Nosrati M and Kentros CG (2022) <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fnbeh.2022.902675\">Social Learning of a Spatial Task by Observation Alone<\/a>. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 16:902675. doi: 10.3389\/fnbeh.2022.902675<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Abstact<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;Interactions between conspecifics are central to the acquisition of useful memories in the real world. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Observational learning, i.e., learning a task by observing the success or failure of others, has been reported in many species, including rodents<\/span><\/strong>. However, previous work in rats with NMDA-receptor blockade has shown that even extensive observation of an unexplored space through a clear barrier is not sufficient to generate a stable hippocampal representation of that space. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">This raises the question of whether rats can learn a spatial task in a purely observed space from watching a conspecific, and if so, does this somehow stabilize their hippocampal representation?<\/span><\/strong> To address these questions, we designed an observational spatial task in a two-part environment that is nearly identical to that of the aforementioned electrophysiological study, in which an observer rat watches a demonstrator animal to learn the location of a hidden reward. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Our results demonstrate that rats do not need to physically explore an environment to learn a reward location, provided a conspecific demonstrates where it is<\/span><\/strong>. We also show that the behavioral memory is not affected by NMDA receptor blockade, suggesting that the spatial representation underlying the behavior has been consolidated by observation alone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Doublet T, Nosrati M and Kentros CG (2022) <a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/fnbeh.2022.902675\">Social Learning of a Spatial Task by Observation Alone<\/a>. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 16:902675. doi: 10.3389\/fnbeh.2022.902675<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Doublet T, Nosrati M and Kentros CG (2022) Social Learning of a Spatial Task by Observation Alone. Front. Behav. Neurosci. 16:902675. doi: 10.3389\/fnbeh.2022.902675 Abstact &#8220;Interactions between conspecifics are central to the acquisition of useful memories in the real world. Observational learning, i.e., learning a task by observing the success or failure of others, has been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,346,519],"tags":[1042,1040,1041],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2663"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2663"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2663\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2664,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2663\/revisions\/2664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/braininspirednavigation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}