The need for automating behavioral observations and the evolution of systems developed for that purpose is outlined. Video tracking systems enable researchers to study behavior in a reliable and consistent way and over longer time periods than if they were using manual recording. To overcome limitations of currently available systems, we have designed EthoVision, an integrated system for automatic recording of activity, movement, and interactions of animals. The EthoVision software is presented, highlighting some key features that separate EthoVision from other systems: easy file management, independent variable definition, flexible arena and zone design, several methods of data acquisition allowing identification and tracking of multiple animals in multiple arenas, and tools for visualization of the tracks and calculation of a range of analysis parameters. A review of studies using EthoVision is presented, demonstrating the system’s use in a wide variety of applications. Possible future directions for development are discussed.

/pdf/ethovision-a-versatile-video-tracking-system-for-automation-51g22pknx3.pdf

EthoVision: a versatile video tracking system for automation of behavioral experiments.

New granule cells are born throughout life in the dentate gyrus of the hippocampal formation. Given the fundamental role of the hippocampus in processes underlying certain forms of learning and memory, it has been speculated that newborn granule cells contribute to cognition. However, previous strategies aiming to causally link newborn neurons with hippocampal function used ablation strategies that were not exclusive to the hippocampus or that were associated with substantial side effects, such as inflammation. We here used a lentiviral approach to specifically block neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of adult male rats by inhibiting WNT signaling, which is critically involved in the generation of newborn neurons, using a dominant-negative WNT (dnWNT). We found a level-dependent effect of adult neurogenesis on the long-term retention of spatial memory in the water maze task, as rats with substantially reduced levels of newborn neurons showed less preference for the target zone in probe trials >2 wk after acquisition compared with control rats. Furthermore, animals with strongly reduced levels of neurogenesis were impaired in a hippocampus-dependent object recognition task. Social transmission of food preference, a behavioral test that also depends on hippocampal function, was not affected by knockdown of neurogenesis. Here we identified a role for newborn neurons in distinct aspects of hippocampal function that will set the ground to further elucidate, using experimental and computational strategies, the mechanism by which newborn neurons contribute to behavior. [Supplemental material is available online at www.learnmem.org.]

/pdf/dentate-gyrus-specific-knockdown-of-adult-neurogenesis-2plhg0xhx1.pdf

Dentate gyrus-specific knockdown of adult neurogenesis impairs spatial and object recognition memory in adult rats

We investigated the role of NMDA receptors in memory encoding and retrieval. A delayed matching-to-place (DMP) paradigm in the watermaze was used to examine 1-trial spatial memory in rats. Over periods of up to 21 days, 4 daily trials were given to an escape platform hidden in a new location each day, with the memory interval (ITI) varying from 15 sec to 2 hours between trials 1 and 2, but always at 15 sec for the remaining ITIs. Using chronic i.c.v. infusions of D-AP5, acute intrahippocampal infusions, ibotenate hippocampus + dentate lesions and relevant aCSF or sham surgery control groups, we established: (1) the DMP task is hippocampal-dependent; (2) D-AP5 causes a delay-dependent impairment of memory in which the Groups x Delay interaction was significant on two separate measures of performance; (3) this memory impairment also occurs with acute intrahippocampal infusions; (4) the impairment occurs irrespective of whether the animals stay in or are removed from the training context during the memory delay interval; and (5) D-AP5 affects neither the retrieval of information about the spatial layout of the environment, nor memory of where the escape platform had been located on the last day before the start of chronic D-AP5 infusion. LTP in vivo in the dentate gyrus was blocked in the chronically-infused D-AP5 rats and HPLC measurements at sacrifice revealed appropriate intrahippocampal levels. Acute intrahippocampal infusion of radiolabelled D-AP5 revealed relatively restricted diffusion and was used to estimate whole-tissue hippocampal drug concentrations. These results indicate that (1) short-term memory for spatial information is independent of NMDA receptors; (2) the rapid consolidation of spatial information into long-term memory requires activation of hippocampal NMDA receptors; (3) NMDA receptors are not involved in memory retrieval; and (4) the delay-related effects of NMDA receptor antagonists on performance of this task cannot be explained in terms of sensorimotor disturbances. The findings relate to the idea that hippocampal synaptic plasticity is involved in event-memory (Morris and Frey, Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 1997;352:1489–1503) and to a computational model of one-trial DMP performance of Foster et al. (unpublished data). Hippocampus 9:118–136, 1999. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Delay-dependent impairment of a matching-to-place task with chronic and intrahippocampal infusion of the NMDA-antagonist D-AP5.

Rapid place encoding by hippocampal neurons, as reflected by place-related firing, has been intensely studied, whereas the substrates that translate hippocampal place codes into behavior have received little attention A key point relevant to this translation is that hippocampal organization is characterized by functional–anatomical gradients along the septotemporal axis: Whereas the ability of hippocampal neurons to encode accurate place information declines from the septal to temporal end, hippocampal connectivity to prefrontal and subcortical sites that might relate such place information to behavioral-control processes shows an opposite gradient We examined in rats the impact of selective lesions to relevant parts of the hippocampus on behavioral tests requiring place learning (watermaze procedures) and on in vivo electrophysiological models of hippocampal encoding (long-term potentiation [LTP], place cells) We found that the intermediate hippocampus is necessary and largely sufficient for behavioral performance based on rapid place learning In contrast, a residual septal pole of the hippocampus, although displaying intact electrophysiological indices of rapid information encoding (LTP, precise place-related firing, and rapid remapping), failed to sustain watermaze performance based on rapid place learning These data highlight the important distinction between hippocampal encoding and the behavioral performance based on such encoding, and suggest that the intermediate hippocampus, where substrates of rapid accurate place encoding converge with links to behavioral control, is critical to translate rapid (one-trial) place learning into navigational performance

/pdf/from-rapid-place-learning-to-behavioral-performance-a-key-50v237kr7l.pdf

From Rapid Place Learning to Behavioral Performance: A Key Role for the Intermediate Hippocampus

Computerised video tracking, movement analysis and behaviour recognition in insects

I n t r o d u c t i o n The water maze is a widely used spatial learning task (Morris 1981, 1984) in which rodents are trained to escape from water onto a hidden platform located within a large, usually circular, pool. Over a series of trials, rats (or mice) will rapidly learn to take relatively direct paths to the platform, indicating that they may have learned its spatial location. Transfer tests, sometimes called probe tests, in which the platform is removed from the pool, offer further evidence of true spatial learning, as trained animals display a search pattern focusing on the platform location in the training quadrant. Performance in this task has provided a simple and convenient assay of the effects of drugs or brain lesions on cognitive function in rats (for review, see Brandeis et al. 1989; McNamara and Skelton 1993), and its use with mice has revealed covariation between spatial learning and strain-specific differences in neuroanatomical circuitry (Schwegler et al. 1988) and the effects of targeted deletion of genes putatively involved in synaptic plasticity (Grant et al. 1992, Silva et al. 1992). Despite its efficacy, the task as it is usually run has a number of limitations. First, animals may develop strategies for finding the platform, such as circling at roughly the appropriate distance from the sidewall, which do not actually require them to learn where the platform is located. Such strategies can, nevertheless, lead to a steady decline in escape latency that may be falsely interpreted as spatial learning. Second, during a transfer test, animals may initially search the training quadrant but, failing to locate the now-removed platform, move elsewhere in the pool. If this tendency to move elsewhere differs across t reatment groups, an analysis of time (or distance) spent in the training quadrant throughout the entire transfer test will be a confounded index of the extent of spatial learning. Animals that go directly to the platform area and then search elsewhere because they fail to find the now-removed platform may be scored incorrectly as poor learners. Third, because transfer tests, as conventionally run are extinction trials (i.e., no escape is possible), the use of multiple transfer tests may compromise the asymptote reached in learning or even, because learning is so rapid, encourage animals to search outside the trained area when they notice that the platform is absent. Thus, performance with multiple transfer tests, while desirable in pharmacological work, may underest imate the true level of learning. Buresova et al. (1985) designed an ingenious on-demand platform 3Corresponding author, which, they suggested, would distinguish true spatial mapping from other

/pdf/the-atlantis-platform-a-new-design-and-further-developments-7sgqo9f8sy.pdf

The Atlantis platform: a new design and further developments of Buresova's on-demand platform for the water maze.

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The Atlantis platform: a new design and further developments of Buresova's on-demand platform for the water maze.