Apparatus for Behaviour
Behavioural testing was conducted in an elevated (94cm), modifiable cross-maze with clear Perspex walls and wooden floor. Each arm was 70cm long and 10cm wide, with 17cm high walls. Inset food wells were positioned at the end of each arm so that the food rewards could not be seen from the choice point. An aluminium barrier was used to block one arm to create a T-shape, while a second transferable barrier was used to temporarily block access to one of the T-maze arms during the sample run. Unless otherwise specified in the experimental condition, the location of the start arm remained constant across experiments. The maze was positioned in the centre of a room (280cm x 280cm x 20cm) with salient visual cues on the walls. All room cues remained constant throughout the experiments. For both pre-training and the five experimental conditions the experimenter stood behind the start arm for both the ‘sample’ and ‘test’ runs while the rat completed the trial. The illumination in the room for all conditions, unless otherwise specified, was 23-26lx.