Investigating the Spatial Memory of White Albino Rats: Participation in an Elevated Maze

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43.2 inches above the floor. The testing room was 118 inches by 137 inches and it had blue blinds with cream walls. It was well illuminated by 4 bulbs each 36watts. There were numerous visual cues scattered around the room, including a sink, table, doors, and columns. The researcher utilized a Data Collection sheet to record the amount of reference memory and working memory errors, arms the rat ran down, the weight of the rats and also the specific arm the rat ran down. A stop watch was used to record the seconds or minutes the rats took to complete the trial. The rats had experiment food that was Kellogs Fruit Loops. Kellogs USA, Battlecreek, MI. and a strict lab diet that was Rat Chow 5008 formula lab. PMI Nutrition International, MO, USA. 50lbs bag. They were placed in 18” x 9.5” x 8.5” cages that had a water bottle. There was a cleaning cloth and poop paper for the rats. Each observer had lab coats along with a book and a pencil to record information.

Procedure

The habituation period lasted for approximately five days. On the first day, the rats were weighed and their tail were numbered. The rats were given the opportunity to explore the maze for approximately 10 mins. however during the first 2 days with no food was present on the apparatus. On the last 3 days of this period, the rats explored the maze for the same 10 mins but a small piece of experimental food(fruit loops) was placed in all food cups randomly around the arms of the apparatus. At the end of each day the rats were brought back to their designated cages and were given food ration. The training: period lasted for nine days. There were two trials each day from Monday to Friday. The first trial was in the morning from 8am - 10am and the rats were weighed but this was not done in the second trial that was in the evening from 4pm-6pm. At the beginning of every trial, the observers wiped the maze then they baited all the arms on the apparatus except 5 and 8. and then they placed the rat in the center of the maze. A stop watch was used to time how long it took each rat to obtain their experimental food(fruit loops). During this period. the clock was stopped if the rat obtained all 6 pieces of fruit loops, the rat goes 2 minutes without moving or 10 minutes had passed with any activity. After the trial has been completed the rats were removed from the apparatus and placed in his/her designated cage. The observer then completes a form, recording the reference memory or working memory error.

Results

At the start of the experiment there were 16 rats however only 11 rats which consisted of 11 females and 6 males had adequate information to report on. The mean number of trials for the males were 12 while the females had 9.80. The rats went through two different mazes however all the arms were the same in width thus allowing no effect on the accuracy of choice behaviour, the mean number of arms were 90.33 for males and 84.40 for females. It took the male rats an average time (in seconds per arm) of 3105.83 to complete the criteria while the female rats took 2744.20 and with that being said, it can be noted that the female rats are more active than the males.

There were two types of memory that are evaluated during the assignment and these are reference memory and working memory. Reference memory is evaluated when the rats just visit the arms of the maze which contains the fruit loop. The inability to do as such will bring about reference memory error. Working memory is evaluated when the rats enter each arm a solitary time. Reentry into the arms would bring about a working memory blunder. The male had an average of 12.33 working memory errors while the females had 14.00. On the other hand, the male rats had more reference memory errors than females. There was a mean of 14.50 for the males and 13.20 for the females.

During the last 5 trials, there was a mean of 39.33 arms for males and 39 for females. The males were seen to be more active than the females because their average time (in seconds per arm) was 890.50 and the females clocked in a time of 920.80. The average number of working memory errors was 2.83 for male rats and 2.4 for females while the reference memory error was 7.0 for male rats and 7.2 for females.

The observer utilized a Data Collection Sheet to record the number of times the rats when down an arm, the weight of the different rats and the number of working memory and reference errors made. The table in Figure 1. (In Appendix) was used to demonstrate the average number of arms to make a criteria, working memory error, reference memory error, the seconds it took to make a criteria. The male rats overwhelmed each segment, they for the most part appeared to be more dynamic and more required in the trial than females notwithstanding the way that there were a couple of zones in which they beaten the males.

Discussion

On various occasions, the rats would run quickly over the middle stage and immediately rundown an arm, this kind of conduct was typically watched just on the initial couple of decisions. In all cases, once a rat had put each of the four legs onto an arm, it continued to the finish of the arm before pivoting. There was a checked inclination for the more extensive arms, and rats once in a while picked the three most limited arms. The behaviour of the rats improved especially from the habituation investigation conditions. At to begin with, the rats would sniff the experimental food before eating it but as they days progressed they got familiar with it. As the rats got more comfortable with the strategy, they would frequently eat either toward the finish of an arm or while running along the arms. However, on rare occasions the rats would regularly delay at the edge of the maze and situate toward the finish of an arm before picking it up.

The rat’s performance improved and within 9 days of training, all rats were reliably picking a normal of more than seven unique arms inside the initial eight decisions. The abnormal state of exactness even on the initial 9 days of training recommends that the rats were inclined not to rehash their decisions in this circumstance. The recording adequately relates well with those detailed by Olton and Samuelson (1976). Generally speaking the experiment was great, and the likelihood of being right on progressive decisions demonstrated an unfaltering increase in performance over the span of a trial in every one of the conditions.

The last 5 trials proposes that the decay came about because of