RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Mice in a labyrinth: Rapid learning, sudden insight, and efficient exploration
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.01.14.426746
DO 10.1101/2021.01.14.426746
A1 Matthew Rosenberg
A1 Tony Zhang
A1 Pietro Perona
A1 Markus Meister
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/01/15/2021.01.14.426746.abstract
AB Animals learn certain complex tasks remarkably fast, sometimes after a single experience. What behavioral algorithms support this efficiency? Many contemporary studies based on two-alternative-forced-choice (2AFC) tasks observe only slow or incomplete learning. As an alternative, we study the unconstrained behavior of mice in a complex labyrinth and measure the dynamics of learning and the behaviors that enable it. A mouse in the labyrinth makes ~2000 navigation decisions per hour. The animal quickly discovers the location of a reward in the maze and executes correct 10-bit choices after only 10 reward experiences – a learning rate 1000-fold higher than in 2AFC experiments. Many mice improve discontinuously from one minute to the next, suggesting moments of sudden insight about the structure of the labyrinth. The underlying search algorithm does not require a global memory of places visited and is largely explained by purely local turning rules.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.