EFFECT OF POSTTRAINING INJECTIONS OF GLUCOSE ON ACQUISITION OF 2 APPETITIVE LEARNING-TASKS Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The present experiments were designed to examine the effect of posttraining glucose injections on the acquisition of two appetitive tasks in an 8-arm radial maze. On a win-stay visual discrimination task, the presence of food in four randomly selected maze arms was signaled by a light cue, and rats were required to visit each of the four lit arms twice within a trial. The animals were given one trial per day and injected immediately posttraining on Day 5. A dose of 2.0 g/kg glucose significantly improved win-stay acquisition relative to the performance of controls, but a dose of 100 mg/kg had no effect. On a win-shift task, rats were allowed to obtain food from four randomly selected maze arms, followed by a delay period in which they were removed from the maze. The animals were returned to the maze for a retention test, in which only the arms that had not been visited prior to the delay contained food. After training on shorter delays, 18 h were imposed between the first and second four choices; glucose was injected immediately after the first four choices. Glucose doses of both 2.0 g/kg and 100 mg/kg significantly improved retention, relative to that of controls. The results demonstrate that the memory-improving action of glucose generalizes to appetitive tasks, and they suggest that glucose can improve memory in appetitive tasks with different mnemonic requirements. 1990, Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.

published proceedings

  • PSYCHOBIOLOGY

author list (cited authors)

  • PACKARD, M. G., & WHITE, N. M.

citation count

  • 44

complete list of authors

  • PACKARD, MG||WHITE, NM

publication date

  • January 1990