Abstract
Environmental information plays an important role in remembering events. Information about stable aspects of the environment (here referred to as 'context') and the event are combined by the hippocampal system and stored as context-dependent memory. In rodents (such as rats and mice), context-dependent memory is often investigated with the object-in-context task. However, the implementation and interpretation of this task varies considerably across studies. This variation hampers the comparison between studies and-for those who design a new experiment or carry out pilot experiments-the estimation of whether observed behavior is within the expected range. Also, it is currently unclear which of the variables critically influence the outcome of the task. To address these issues, we carried out a preregistered systematic review (PROSPERO CRD42020191340) and provide an up-to-date overview of the animal-, task-, and protocol-related variations in the object-in-context task for rodents. Using a data-driven explorative meta-analysis we next identified critical factors influencing the outcome of this task, such as sex, testbox size and the delay between the learning trials. Based on these observations we provide recommendations on sex, strain, prior arousal, context (size, walls, shape, etc.) and timing (habituation, learning, and memory phase) to create more consensus in the set-up, procedure, and interpretation of the object-in-context task for rodents. This could contribute to a more robust and evidence-based design in future animal experiments.
Highlights
Context is defined as a set of independent features that can be observed by an individual and which are stable aspects of the environment [1, 2]
The documents, datasets and code used during literature search, screening, data extraction, and meta-analyses are available via Open Science Framework (OSF; https://osf.io/gy2mc/)
The search string contained search terms for ‘learning and memory’, ‘rodents’, ‘object-in-context task’ and terms to exclude meta-analyses and systematic reviews
Summary
Context is defined as a set of independent features that can be observed by an individual and which are stable aspects of the environment [1, 2]. Context-dependent, or contextual, memory is a specific type of episodic memory in which information of events is stored in combination with contextual features [3, 4]. Meta-analysis of the rodent object-in-context task (project #114024150) and the Dutch Ministry of Defense. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript
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