CAA: Comparative Studies of Spatial and Nonspatial Memory inMammals

海马体的大小，一个已知的大脑结构， 空间学习与野外空间行为相关 啮齿动物 在这个职业发展奖，比较将是 不同物种的空间学习能力 抽象学习任务。 使用操作性方法，成对的物种， 已知海马大小不同，将在两个 已知涉及海马体的操作性任务（空间延迟- 不匹配的样本，同时气味歧视）和两个任务 不需要完整的海马体（听觉辨别， 连续嗅觉辨别）。 两种袋鼠鼠 （Dipodomys）和两种田鼠（Microtus）将进行比较。 据预测，在每个属中，具有较大 海马会表现出上级的学习能力 任务，特别是空间任务，但不应该有 非海马任务的物种差异。 拟议的研究将具有重要意义，原因有几个。 它 这将是第一次对不同类型的记忆进行比较研究， 野生啮齿动物 因为我们对人类生理学的理解 哺乳动物的记忆主要是基于实验室老鼠， 重要的是要知道实验室大鼠是否表现出典型的啮齿动物行为。 更重要的是， 物种可以识别物种栖息地的哪些特征可以导致 学习和记忆能力的提高。 这不仅可以 这项研究有助于我们了解动物记忆的进化，但它 也能帮助我们理解海马体， 对动物和人类的记忆都至关重要 例如，没有其他 动物研究试图比较不同的性能， 涉及海马的任务（迷宫学习，气味 歧视）。 因此，这项研究不仅将揭示 记忆的进化，但对海马体的功能， 具有临床重要性的结构。

The size of the hippocampus, a brain structure known to mediate spatial learning, is correlated with spatial behavior in wild rodents. In this career advancement award, a comparison will be made of the spatial learning ability of different species on abstract learning tasks. Using operant methods, pairs of species, known to differ in hippocampal size, will be compared on two operant tasks known to involve the hippocampus (spatial delayed- nonmatch-to-sample, simultaneous odor discrimination) and two tasks that do not require an intact hippocampus (auditory discrimination, successive olfactory discrimination). Two species of kangaroo rats (Dipodomys) and two species of voles (Microtus) will be compared. It is predicted that, within each genus, the species with a larger hippocampus will show superior learning ability on hippocampal tasks, particularly the spatial task, but that there should be no species differences on nonhippocampal tasks. The proposed study will be significant for several reasons. It will be the first comparative study of different types of memory in wild rodents. Because our understanding of the physiology of memory in mammals is largely based on the laboratory rat, it is important to know if laboratory rats show typical rodent behavior. More importantly, comparative studies of closely related rodent species can identify what features of a species's habitat can lead to increases in learning and memory capacity. Not only can this study help us to understand the evolution of animal memory, but it can also help us to understand the hippocampus, a structure critical in both animal and human memory. For example, no other animal study has attempted to compare performance of different tasks involving the hippocampus (maze learning, odor discrimination). Thus, this study will shed light not only on the evolution of memory, but on the function of the hippocampus, a structure of clinical importance.