Advisor Information
Jeffrey French
Location
Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library
Presentation Type
Poster
Start Date
3-3-2017 2:15 PM
End Date
3-3-2017 3:30 PM
Abstract
Navigation of the social world depends largely on one’s responsiveness to social stimuli and information from a wide range of senses can be used to discriminate between individuals. Mammals use several sensory modes to communicate and respond to their surroundings, but olfaction is the dominant sense across most species. Chemosignals provide a wealth of information including sex, age, reproductive status, and individual identity. Currently, assessment of olfaction is largely limited to the habituation-dishabituation paradigm or the two-choice discrimination task used primarily in rodents. These paradigms are limited by their reliance on inherent reward of interaction with stimuli without providing additional positive reward or positive punishment. In this study, we designed a paradigm based on an ecologically-significant foraging task where baited tubes are seated in a tree-like apparatus that allows not only baiting of positive and negative reward, but scent cues as well. Performance based on this tree has shown that 88.9% of marmoset monkeys (Callithrix penicillata) were able to reach criteria regardless of sex and age (range 4 – 12 years). This paradigm has potential for use in social recognition tasks and absolute threshold determination for various social and nonsocial scents.
Included in
Applied Behavior Analysis Commons, Behavioral Neurobiology Commons, Experimental Analysis of Behavior Commons, Laboratory and Basic Science Research Commons
Assessment of olfactory-based social recognition: designing a paradigm for marmosets
Dr. C.C. and Mabel L. Criss Library
Navigation of the social world depends largely on one’s responsiveness to social stimuli and information from a wide range of senses can be used to discriminate between individuals. Mammals use several sensory modes to communicate and respond to their surroundings, but olfaction is the dominant sense across most species. Chemosignals provide a wealth of information including sex, age, reproductive status, and individual identity. Currently, assessment of olfaction is largely limited to the habituation-dishabituation paradigm or the two-choice discrimination task used primarily in rodents. These paradigms are limited by their reliance on inherent reward of interaction with stimuli without providing additional positive reward or positive punishment. In this study, we designed a paradigm based on an ecologically-significant foraging task where baited tubes are seated in a tree-like apparatus that allows not only baiting of positive and negative reward, but scent cues as well. Performance based on this tree has shown that 88.9% of marmoset monkeys (Callithrix penicillata) were able to reach criteria regardless of sex and age (range 4 – 12 years). This paradigm has potential for use in social recognition tasks and absolute threshold determination for various social and nonsocial scents.