D-102 | Development of an experimental paradigm in rats for the study of movement coordination between subjects

Neural Circuits and Systems Neuroscience
Author: Mayra Paszkowicz | Email: mayrapaszkowicz@gmail.com

Mayra Paszkowicz^1°, Emilio Kropff^1°, María Cecilia Martínez^1°

^1° Physiology and Algorithms of the Brain, Fundación Instituto Leloir, IIBBA-CONICET

There is a growing interest in neuroscience in understanding the neural mechanisms mediating different types of social interactions, both in humans and laboratory animals. The coordination of movements is one of the simplest types of social interaction which allows for everyday tasks such as opening the door for a passerby or performing a move in a team sport. These situations involve the spatio-temporal location of the other, through mechanisms in which the hippocampus plays a fundamental role. However, there are no standardized behavioral paradigms to assess and measure movement coordination in detail. Here we developed two variants of a multi-trial task in which a pair of adult rats must synchronize their movements to obtain a reward. In the task, a visual cue turns on to indicate the beginning of a trial and afterwards subjects must coordinately collect the reward. The first variant has a sudden turn on of the cue whereas in the other, the light is gradually lit. We characterized the learning curves of both variants and adjusted the conditions to increase synchronization through training. Our preliminary results show that the second variant of the task increases significance of the correlation between the movements of the subjects as they walk towards the reward delivery port. This sets ground for future electrophysiology studies aimed to register hippocampal CA1 local field potential.