Abstract
When cockroaches are trained to a visual–olfactory cue pairing using the antennal projection response (APR), they can form different memories for the location of a visual cue. A series of experiments, each examining memory for the spatial location of a visual cue, were performed using restrained cockroaches. The first group of experiments involved training cockroaches to associate a visual cue (CS—green LED) with an odor cue (US) in the presence or absence of a second visual reference cue (white LED). These experiments revealed that cockroaches have at least two forms of spatial memory. First, it was found that during learning, the movements of the antennae in response to the odor influenced the cockroaches’ memory. If they use only one antenna, cockroaches form a memory that results in an APR being elicited to the CS irrespective of its location in space. When using both antennae, the cockroaches resulting memory leads to an APR to the CS that is spatially confined to within 15° of the trained position. This memory represents an egocentric spatial representation. Second, the cockroaches simultaneously formed a memory for the angular spatial relationships between two visual cues when trained in the presence of a second visual reference cue. This training provided the cockroaches an allocentric representation or visual snapshot of the environment. If both egocentric and the visual snapshot were available to the cockroach to localize the learned cue, the visual snapshot determined the behavioral response in this assay. Finally, the split-brain assay was used to characterize the cockroach’s ability to establish a memory for the angular relationship between two visual cues with half a brain. Split-brain cockroaches were trained to unilaterally associate a pair of visual cues (CS—green LED and reference—white LED) with an odor cue (US). Split-brain cockroaches learned the general arrangement of the visual cues (i.e., the green LED is right of the white LED), but not the precise angular relationship. These experiments provide new insight into spatial memory processes in the cockroach.
Highlights
The cockroach’s environment is composed of a variety of sensory cues that convey important information about food, shelter, and danger
We examined if the association was generalized to the contralateral side of cockroaches that were conditioned with non-restricted sensory input and conditioned stimuli (CS) + unconditioned stimulus (US) at position 1
antennal projection response (APR) elicited from the “naïve half ” of cockroaches were not statistically different from those elicited from untrained cockroaches (n = 18, Signed-Rank, P = 0.5) and, the memory was not generalized
Summary
The cockroach’s environment is composed of a variety of sensory cues that convey important information about food, shelter, and danger. As the cockroach navigates through this sensory milieu it must be able to retain behaviorally relevant information. The utilization of internal and external cues facilitates the formation of proper associations about the relevant information, Spatial Representations in the Cockroach thereby maximizing the cockroach’s fitness. Integration of multimodal information and associative memory systems can function to signal spatially relevant information. This spatial information is assumed to be stored in the cockroach’s brain and used to facilitate the localization of objects and places. It has been shown that the cockroach uses both olfactory and visual spatial information to localize relevant goals in its environment (Lent, 2006). The cockroach uses of the spatial structure of an odor stimulus for directional orientation (Hösl, 1990) and the ability to learn the spatial relationship between visual cues (Mizunami et al, 1998; Kwon et al, 2004)
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