Telencephalon ablation impairs goldfish allocentric spatial learning in a "hole-board" task

Abstract

The present work analyzes the involvement of telencephalon of goldfish in spatial strategies, using a procedure analogue to the hole-board task. With this aim, goldfish with sham operation or telencephalon ablation were trained to find a baited feeder within a twenty-five feeder matrix, which maintained stable spatial relationships relative to five peripheral landmarks. After training, different types of probe tests were conducted. Although both groups learned the task, probe trials showed that whereas the sham animals used the whole configuration of cues to implement map-like strategies the telencephalic animals used a guidance strategy based on cues located in the vicinity of the baited feeder. These results confirm the role of teleost fish telencephalon in the use of allocentric strategies obtained with other spatial procedures, and indicate that the hole-board task described here for goldfish is a useful tool to assess the neural bases of spatial cognition in teleost fish.