The present study investigated influence of housing conditions on motor functions recovery and exploratory behavior following ouabain focal brain lesion in the rat. During 30 days post-surgery period rats were housed individually in standard cages (IS) or in groups in enriched environment (EE) and behaviorally tested. The EE lesioned rats showed enhanced recovery from motor impairments in walking beam task, comparing with IS animals. Contrarily, in the open field IS rats (both lesioned and control) traveled a longer distance, showed less habituation and spent less time resting at the home base than the EE animals. Unlike the EE lesioned animals, the lesioned IS rats, presented a tendency to hyperactivity in postinjury period. Turning tendency was significantly affected by unilateral brain lesion only in the EE rats. We can conclude that housing conditions distinctly affected the rat.s behavior in classical laboratory tests.
One purpose of the two studies reported here was to examine the reactions of rats to changes in the spatial arrangement of a familiarized environment under low stress conditions. The second purpose was to test the role of rats' experience with novelty. In Experiment I the novelty was manipulated by introducing new tunnels into one zone of the experimental chamber. The introduction of novelty took place after 11 habituation sessions. In Experiment II in the course of habituation sessions the experimental group of rats was subjected to a persistent change of tunnel arrangement in the experimental zone, whereas for the control group nothing changed. All animals reacted to the novelty with increased time spent in the experimental zone and decreased time spent in other zones. Both experiments show that under low stress conditions rats demonstrate a positive response toward novelty and that their previous experience with novelty does not affect that reaction.
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