REVECZ-KRUSHINSKY REASONING TEST-PERFORMA NCE IN RATS OF DIFFERENT GENOTYPES

Brown Norway rats bred from the original wild stack, KM (Krushinsky-Mo lodkina) albino rats selectively bred for audiogenic seizure susceptib ility, and Wistar albino rats were subjected to Revecz-Krushinsky reas oning test, It determines whether rats can anticipate regular yet invi sible shifts of food bait positions. A bait was placed under one of 12 opaque cylinders (arranged in a line) to be tipped by a rat in order to obtain food. In the first trial the cylinder 1 was baited, in the s econd trial the cylinder 2 was and so on up to 12th one, The correct s trategy of this problem solving is a choice ''one cylinder ahead'' of the previous bait location. Rats appeared to be unable to realize this algorithm accurately. However, in some cases their performance was si gnificantly different from chance, They apparently realized another st rategy: to choose recently baited cylinders with shifting a zone of se arch, It was typical for brown and Wistar rats but not for KM which pr efered to choose the cylinders baited in the previous trials, but thei r preference was not specified by recently baited positions. In the se cond experiment (learning of an accurate choice of one target cylinder with a fixed position in the line) the worst performance was found al so in KM rats. The strain differences in Revecz-Krushinsky test perfor mance are supposed to be caused by the level of spatial working memory .