Memory in an Eight-Channel Radial Maze is Better in High-Impulsivity Rats Than Low-Impulsivity Animals

Abstract

On training in an eight-channel radial maze, high-impulsivity animals found the reinforced arm and ate food more quickly than individuals capable of self-control and ambivalent rats. They made fewer errors of working memory in solving tasks linked with discriminating signal stimulus objects, though there were no differences in learning speed and the number of long-term memory errors in animals of different groups. During reversion training, when the reinforced arm of the maze was changed to another and vice versa, high-impulsivity animals spent less time exploring the reinforced maze arms than rats of the other groups. They made fewer signal working memory and long-term memory errors, though learning speed was not different between these and other groups of animals. The data obtained here provide evidence that high-impulsivity rats, as compared with low-impulsivity and ambivalent animals, showed higher levels of overall movement activity and displayed better expression of working memory.