Tactile perception and working memory in rats and humans

Primates can store sensory stimulus parameters in working memory for subsequent manipulation, but until now, there has been no demonstration of this capacity in rodents. Here we report tactile working memory in rats. Each stimulus is a vibration, generated as a series of velocity values sampled from...

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Published inProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 111; no. 6; pp. 2331 - 2336
Main Authors Fassihi, Arash, Akrami, Athena, Esmaeili, Vahid, Diamond, Mathew E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States National Academy of Sciences 11.02.2014
National Acad Sciences
Subjects
Animals
Behavioral neuroscience
Biological Sciences
Humans
Male
Memory
Memory, Short-Term
Mental stimulation
Primates
Psychometrics
Rats
Rats, Wistar
Rodents
Touch Perception
Vibration
Working memory
vibrissa
somatosensory
psychophysics
delayed comparison
decision making
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Summary:Primates can store sensory stimulus parameters in working memory for subsequent manipulation, but until now, there has been no demonstration of this capacity in rodents. Here we report tactile working memory in rats. Each stimulus is a vibration, generated as a series of velocity values sampled from a normal distribution. To perform the task, the rat positions its whiskers to receive two such stimuli, “base” and “comparison,” separated by a variable delay. It then judges which stimulus had greater velocity SD. In analogous experiments, humans compare two vibratory stimuli on the fingertip. We demonstrate that the ability of rats to hold base stimulus information (for up to 8 s) and their acuity in assessing stimulus differences overlap the performance demonstrated by humans. This experiment highlights the ability of rats to perceive the statistical structure of vibrations and reveals their previously unknown capacity to store sensory information in working memory.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1315171111
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Author contributions: A.F., A.A., and M.E.D. designed research; A.F. and A.A. performed research; A.F., A.A., V.E., and M.E.D. analyzed data; and A.F., A.A., and M.E.D. wrote the paper.
Edited* by Ranulfo Romo, Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México, Mexico D.F., Mexico, and approved December 5, 2013 (received for review August 9, 2013)
2Present address: Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Princeton, NJ 08544-1014.
1A.F. and A.A. contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1315171111