Twelve-Day Reinforcement-Based Memory Retention in African Cichlids (Labidochromis caeruleus)

The formation of long-term memories for food sources is essential for the survival of most animals. Long-term memory formation in mammalian species has been demonstrated through a variety of conditioning tasks, however, the nature of long-term memory in fish is less known. In the current study, we e...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inFrontiers in behavioral neuroscience Vol. 10; p. 157
Main Authors Ingraham, Erica, Anderson, Nicole D, Hurd, Peter L, Hamilton, Trevor J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Switzerland Frontiers Research Foundation 17.08.2016
Frontiers Media S.A
Subjects
Birds
Brain research
Cichlid fish
Cichlidae
Cognitive ability
Fish
Food
Food reinforcement
Food sources
Foraging behavior
Labidochromis caeruleus
learning and memory
Long term memory
Memory
Memory, Long-Term
Neuroscience
operant conditioning
Water quality
Zebrafish
Canada
food reinforcement
memory
cichlid fish
learning and memory
operant conditioning
long-term
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:The formation of long-term memories for food sources is essential for the survival of most animals. Long-term memory formation in mammalian species has been demonstrated through a variety of conditioning tasks, however, the nature of long-term memory in fish is less known. In the current study, we explored whether African cichlids (Labidochromis caeruleus) could form memories for food-reinforced stimuli that last for 12 days. During the training sessions, fish were reinforced for approaching an upward drifting line grating. After a rest period of 12 days, fish demonstrated a significant preference for the upward drifting grating. To determine whether this preference could also be reversed, fish were then reinforced for approaching a downward drifting line grating after a 20-day rest period. When tested 12 days later, there were no significant differences in preference for either stimulus; however, following a second training period for the downward stimulus, there was a significant preference for the downward drifting grating. This suggests that cichlids are able to form reversible discrimination-based memories for food-reinforced stimuli that remain consolidated for at least 12 days.
Bibliography:Edited by: Nuno Sousa, University of Minho, Portugal
Reviewed by: Yasuyuki Ishikawa, Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan; Xavier De Jaeger, CEVA Santé Animale, France
ISSN:1662-5153
1662-5153
DOI:10.3389/fnbeh.2016.00157