Efficient assessment of the rat meta-cognition and the related neural system

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K18694
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Psychology and related fields
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: Okanoya Kazuo 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 教授 (30211121)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-06-30 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: ラット / 迷路 / メタ認知 / 情報希求行動 / 触覚 / 電気生理学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We aimed to establish an efficient procedure to test metacognitive behavior in rats. Metacognitive behavior has been tested using lever pressing or nose poke procedures in rats, but we developed tactile cued H-shaped maze for this purpose. For rats, sense of touch is much more sensitive than visual cues and we hoped this might make the training quicker. Also, by using the H-shaped open maze, we hoped to enable electrophysiological recording while rats were engaged in the task.
We were able to train rats for tactile-cued direction discrimination by the H-maze. In probe trials in which rats were given the opportunity to confirm the sample tactile stimuli, some rats showed the confirmation behavior indicating they might be using metacognitive tactics. More control experiments are needed to reject other possibilities, we hope the procedures developed in this experiment would lead to an efficient study of metacognitive behavior and its neural substrates in rats.

Free Research Field

生物心理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

ラットを使ってメタ認知を示すことで、その神経機構まで踏み込んだ研究が可能である。私たちはすでに、位置記憶を使った研究でラットのメタ認知を世界で初めて示すことに成功しているが(Yuki and Okanoya, J. Exp Psychol.)、位置記憶課題では訓練に数ヶ月かかるところ、今回の萌芽研究によって触覚を手がかりとした迷路課題を開発し、訓練期間を2ヶ月に短縮できた。メタ認知の神経機構をヒトとラットとで比較することで、学習全般の理解を進めることができる。