Environmental enrichment of young adult rats (Rattus norvegicus) in different sensory modalities has long-lasting effects on their ability to learn via specific sensory channels.

Dolivo, Vassilissa; Taborsky, Michael (2017). Environmental enrichment of young adult rats (Rattus norvegicus) in different sensory modalities has long-lasting effects on their ability to learn via specific sensory channels. Journal of comparative psychology, 131(2), pp. 79-88. American Psychological Association 10.1037/com0000063

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Sensory modalities individuals use to obtain information from the environment differ among conspecifics. The relative contributions of genetic divergence and environmental plasticity to this variance remain yet unclear. Numerous studies have shown that specific sensory enrichments or impoverishments at the postnatal stage can shape neural development, with potential lifelong effects. For species capable of adjusting to novel environments, specific sensory stimulation at a later life stage could also induce specific long-lasting behavioral effects. To test this possibility, we enriched young adult Norway rats with either visual, auditory, or olfactory cues. Four to 8 months after the enrichment period we tested each rat for their learning ability in 3 two-choice discrimination tasks, involving either visual, auditory, or olfactory stimulus discrimination, in a full factorial design. No sensory modality was more relevant than others for the proposed task per se, but rats performed better when tested in the modality for which they had been enriched. This shows that specific environmental conditions encountered during early adulthood have specific long-lasting effects on the learning abilities of rats. Furthermore, we disentangled the relative contributions of genetic and environmental causes of the response. The reaction norms of learning abilities in relation to the stimulus modality did not differ between families, so interindividual divergence was mainly driven by environmental rather than genetic factors. (PsycINFO Database Record

Item Type:	Journal Article (Original Article)
Division/Institute:	08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE) > Behavioural Ecology 08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Ecology and Evolution (IEE)
UniBE Contributor:	Dolivo Beuret, Vassilissa, Taborsky, Michael
Subjects:	500 Science > 570 Life sciences; biology 500 Science > 590 Animals (Zoology)
ISSN:	0735-7036
Publisher:	American Psychological Association
Language:	English
Submitter:	Andrea Stettler
Date Deposited:	18 Jul 2023 09:24
Last Modified:	18 Jul 2023 09:24
Publisher DOI:	10.1037/com0000063
PubMed ID:	28277718
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/184916