Source Paper
Selective Roles for Hippocampal, Prefrontal Cortical, and Ventral Striatal Circuits in Radial-Arm Maze Tasks With or Without a Delay
Stan B. Floresco, Jeremy K. Seamans, Anthony G. Phillips
Journal of Neuroscience • 1997
Nondelayed Radial-Arm Maze Task
Objective: To investigate the role of hippocampal, prefrontal cortical, and ventral striatal circuits in spatial cognition during a nondelayed radial-arm maze task where rats search for food without prior knowledge of food locations
This is a Nondelayed Radial-Arm Maze Task protocol using rat as the model organism. The procedure involves 4 procedural steps, 1 equipment items, 1 materials. Extracted from a 1997 paper published in Journal of Neuroscience.
Model and subjects
rat • Not specified • Not specified • Not specified • Not specified • Not specified
Study window
Estimated timing pending
Core workflow
Nondelayed radial-arm maze task setup • Bilateral lidocaine injection into ventral CA1/subiculum • Unilateral disconnection of ventral CA1/subiculum and nucleus accumbens
Primary readouts
- Foraging performance during nondelayed radial-arm maze task
- Effects of ventral CA1/subiculum inactivation on task performance
- Effects of vSub-nucleus accumbens disconnection on nondelayed task performance
- Exploratory goal-directed locomotion in novel situations
Key equipment and reagents
Use this page as an execution guide, then fall back to the source paper whenever you need exact exclusions, dosing details, or assay-specific caveats.
Confirm first
- Verify the animal model, intervention setup, and collection timepoints against the source paper.
- Check that every direct vendor link matches the exact specification your lab plans to run.
Use the page like this
- Work through the protocol steps in order and use the inline vendor chips only when you need to source or verify an item.
- Jump to Experimental Context for readouts, data shape, and analysis flow before planning downstream analysis.
Protocol Steps
Start here. The step list is optimized for running the experiment, with direct vendor links available inline when you need to source a cited item.
Nondelayed radial-arm maze task setup
Rats are placed in a radial-arm maze without prior training or knowledge of food locations. This single-phase task is identical to the test phase of the delayed task but conducted without a preceding training phase.
Note: Rats lack previous knowledge of the location of food on the maze in this nondelayed condition
View evidence from paper
“The single-phase nondelayed task was identical to the test phase of the delayed task, but in the absence of a training phase rats lacked previous knowledge of the location of food on the maze.”
Bilateral lidocaine injection into ventral CA1/subiculum
Transient inactivation of the ventral CA1/subiculum (vSub) is achieved through bilateral injection of lidocaine to test its role in nondelayed foraging performance.
Note: This manipulation disrupts performance on the nondelayed task
View evidence from paper
“Transient inactivation of the ventral CA1/subiculum (vSub) by a bilateral injection of lidocaine disrupted performance on both tasks.”
Unilateral disconnection of ventral CA1/subiculum and nucleus accumbens
Lidocaine is injected into the vSub on one side of the brain and the nucleus accumbens on the other side to transiently disconnect these two brain regions during the nondelayed task.
Note: This disconnection specifically impairs foraging during the nondelayed task but not the delayed task
View evidence from paper
“Transient disconnections between the vSub and the nucleus accumbens produced the opposite effect, disrupting foraging during the nondelayed task but not during the delayed task.”
Measure foraging performance
Observe and record rat foraging behavior during the nondelayed radial-arm maze task, measuring performance outcomes related to spatial navigation and food location discovery.
Note: Performance is assessed under different neural inactivation conditions
View evidence from paper
“In contrast, exploratory goal-directed locomotion in a novel situation not requiring previously acquired information about the location of food is dependent on serial transmission between the hippocampus and the nucleus accumbens.”