Apparatus for Behaviour
Behavioural testing was conducted in an elevated (94cm), modifiable
cross-maze with clear Perspex walls and wooden floor. Each arm was 70cm
long and 10cm wide, with 17cm high walls. Inset food wells were
positioned at the end of each arm so that the food rewards could not be
seen from the choice point. An aluminium barrier was used to block one
arm to create a T-shape, while a second transferable barrier was used to
temporarily block access to one of the T-maze arms during the sample
run. Unless otherwise specified in the experimental condition, the
location of the start arm remained constant across experiments. The maze
was positioned in the centre of a room (280cm x 280cm x 20cm) with
salient visual cues on the walls. All room cues remained constant
throughout the experiments. For both pre-training and the five
experimental conditions the experimenter stood behind the start arm for
both the ‘sample’ and ‘test’ runs while the rat completed the trial. The
illumination in the room for all conditions, unless otherwise specified,
was 23-26lx.