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Early learning failure impairs adult learning in rats
Author(s) -
Manrique T.,
Molero A.,
Cándido A.,
Gallo Milagros
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
developmental psychobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.055
H-Index - 93
eISSN - 1098-2302
pISSN - 0012-1630
DOI - 10.1002/dev.20064
Subject(s) - psychology , weaning , learned helplessness , spatial learning , developmental psychology , task (project management) , adult male , affect (linguistics) , audiology , medicine , neuroscience , communication , cognition , management , economics
Early life experiences may affect adult learning ability. In two experiments we tested the effect of early learning failure on adult performance in Wistar rats. In the first experiment 17‐day‐old rats (PN17), but not 25‐day‐old rats (PN25), trained in a hidden platform water maze task showed deficits in tone‐shock avoidance learning when they were 3‐months‐old. The second experiment, which included random‐platform and non‐platform control groups, confirmed the effect of early (PN18) spatial learning failure on adult avoidance learning. However, post‐weaning training (PN25) without platform also tended to induce adult learning deficits as long as the adult task difficulty was increased. The older non‐platform group did not differ from the impaired group which received early training in a fixed hidden platform task. The results are discussed in terms of the relevance of early learning outcome and developmental stage on adult general learning deficits which may be related to the learned helplessness phenomenon and developmental neural plasticity. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 46:340–349, 2005.