TY - JOUR
T1 - Dissociating spatial strategies in animal research
T2 - Critical methodological review with focus on egocentric navigation and the hippocampus
AU - Johnsen, Svend Heini W
AU - Rytter, Hana Malá
N1 - Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/7
Y1 - 2021/7
N2 - One major challenge in animal research on spatial learning and memory pertains to designing methods to dissociate spatial strategies (allocentric vs. egocentric). This is crucial for understanding the underlying cognitive processes and neural circuits that are recruited in navigational tasks. Taking the egocentric reference frames as a starting point, this review argues that in many extensively used spatial paradigms, multiple spatial reference frames are often available to the animals but remain unaccounted for. We discuss the implications this has for the inferences that can be made and propose a decision-algorithm to construct spatial learning paradigms that can reduce the influence of these confounding variables. Furthermore, with these considerations in mind, we review the role of the hippocampus in egocentric navigation forms, i.e. in response learning, egocentric sequential learning and path integration. This choice is based on the controversy surrounding the role of hippocampus in these spatial paradigms. We discuss the possible methodological confounders that may explain the inconclusive results.
AB - One major challenge in animal research on spatial learning and memory pertains to designing methods to dissociate spatial strategies (allocentric vs. egocentric). This is crucial for understanding the underlying cognitive processes and neural circuits that are recruited in navigational tasks. Taking the egocentric reference frames as a starting point, this review argues that in many extensively used spatial paradigms, multiple spatial reference frames are often available to the animals but remain unaccounted for. We discuss the implications this has for the inferences that can be made and propose a decision-algorithm to construct spatial learning paradigms that can reduce the influence of these confounding variables. Furthermore, with these considerations in mind, we review the role of the hippocampus in egocentric navigation forms, i.e. in response learning, egocentric sequential learning and path integration. This choice is based on the controversy surrounding the role of hippocampus in these spatial paradigms. We discuss the possible methodological confounders that may explain the inconclusive results.
KW - Animal Experimentation
KW - Animals
KW - Hippocampus
KW - Maze Learning
KW - Memory
KW - Space Perception
KW - Spatial Navigation
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85103128872&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.03.022
DO - 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2021.03.022
M3 - Review
C2 - 33771535
SN - 0149-7634
VL - 126
SP - 57
EP - 78
JO - Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
JF - Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews
ER -