PSYC3241 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Morris Water Navigation Task, Spatial Memory, Meadow Vole

• School: UNSW, UNSW Sydney
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC3241
• Professor: Richardson

Document Summary

Animals need to learn where things are located in space. This type of memory critically involves the hippocampus. To test, morris water maze is the gold standard procedure. Use probe test to see if animal spends time in target quadrant- new addition whi. Rats with lesions of hippocampus are impaired at learning about space. First evidence of this was presented by morris. Used 3 groups of adult rats that received 3 different types of lesions before training. Phase 1- place navigation phase where animals have to locate hidden platform. Over trials, all 3 groups improved on task ie. found platform quicker. Hippocampus lesioned rats showed worst performance- they perform the s animals learn nothing about space. Phase 2- make the platform visible using some marker- animals don"t learn about. Animals can see and swim to platform so not confounding previous results. Phase 3- place navigation again and measured if hippocampal group had learnt an.