Abstract
Animals are capable of using visual cues to find the correct route during navigation. These visual cues, which contain spatial information on the direction towards the goal point, are perceived either allocentrically or egocentrically. In this study, we examined how navigating with these two types of visual cues affects the learning processes of rodents. To present egocentrically-stable spatial cues, we devised a head-mounted device that provided discriminative orientation cues that indicated the correct choice at a fork within a double Y-maze. For allocentrically-stable spatial cues, LEDs serving as external route-mark cues were attached to the walls of the double Y-maze and illuminated to indicate the correct pathway. To rule out the possibility of the mice using extra-maze cues, we rotated the entire maze and used different start and goal sites for every trial. Our results revealed that mice using egocentric cues and external route-mark cues both showed a sigmoidal learning process for spatial navigation and that external route mark-based learning, surprisingly, learned faster than egocentric stimulus-based learning in egocentric space.
Highlights
Animals rely on information from their surroundings to correctly navigate to a destination
There has been meaningful research on controlling the movement of rodents in egocentrically stable space using artificial somatosensory signals associated with the stimulation of a reward pathway[4], using artificial somatosensory signals is inadequate for comparing the performance of learning with allocentric cues and the performance of learning with egocentric cues, as somatosensory signals are inherently egocentric
To compare the learning using the two aforementioned navigational strategies, a specialized experimental paradigm in which experimenters determine whether animals perceive the two different types of visual cues as route instructions in taxon system was taken in consideration
Summary
Animals rely on information from their surroundings to correctly navigate to a destination. On the other hand, code route instructions into a list of stimulus-response commands and ensures successful navigation of the subject as long as the given instructions on the route towards the goal location are reliable and sufficient Despite both types of navigational strategies requiring spatial cues, the information provided by the cues for the two strategies manifests different properties. Inspired by the mechanism of navigation devices and based on the basic abilities of rodents in maze learning[5,6], we devised a novel experimental paradigm, in which mice find a short-cut to the goal using external route-marks and egocentric stimuli as allocentrically and egocentrically given cues for taking a left or right in a specialized maze
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