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The Journal of Neuroscience, 1999, 19:RC2:1-5

RAPID COMMUNICATION
Complex Behavioral Strategy and Reversal Learning in the Water Maze without NMDA Receptor-Dependent Long-Term Potentiation

Tim Hoh, Jason Beiko, Francis Boon, Susannah Weiss, and Donald P. Cain

Department of Psychology and Graduate Program in Neuroscience, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario N6A 5C2, Canada

Successful performance of the water maze task requires that rats learn complex behavioral strategies for swimming in a pool of water, searching for and interacting with a hidden platform before its spatial location can be learned. To evaluate whether NMDA receptor-dependent long-term potentiation (NMDA-LTP) is required for learning the required behavioral strategies, rats with NMDA-LTP blocked by systemic pharmacological treatment were trained in the behavioral strategies using simplified and stepwise training methods. Despite the blockade of NMDA-LTP in the dentate gyrus and hippocampal area CA1, rats learned the required behavioral strategies and used them to learn both initial and reversed platform locations. This is the first evaluation of the role of NMDA-LTP specifically in behavioral strategy learning. Although hippocampal NMDA-LTP might contribute to the water maze task, this form of LTP is not essential for learning complex behavioral strategies or multiple hidden platform locations.

Key words: water maze; nonspatial pretraining; LTP; hippocampus; spatial learning; strategy learning; NMDA

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Copyright © 1999 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/99/$05.00/0

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