PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Dominika Radostova
AU  - Daniela Kuncicka
AU  - Branislav Krajcovic
AU  - Lukas Hejtmanek
AU  - Tomas Petrasek
AU  - Jan Svoboda
AU  - Ales Stuchlik
AU  - Hana Brozka
TI  - Incidental Temporal Binding in Rats: A Novel Behavioral Task Relevant to Episodic Memory
AID  - 10.1101/2022.08.30.505895
DP  - 2022 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2022.08.30.505895
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/02/2022.08.30.505895.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/02/2022.08.30.505895.full
AB  - We designed a behavioral task called One-Trial Trace Escape Reaction (OTTER), in which rats incidentally associate two temporally discontinuous stimuli: a neutral acoustic cue (CS) with an aversive stimulus (US) which occurs two seconds later (CS-2s-US sequence). Rats are first habituated to two similar environmental contexts (A and B), each consisting of an interconnected dark and light chamber. Next, rats experience the CS-2s-US sequence in the dark chamber of one of the contexts (either A or B); the US is terminated immediately after a rat escapes into the light chamber. The CS-2s-US sequence is presented only once to ensure the incidental acquisition of the association. The recall is tested 24 h later when rats are presented with only the CS in the alternate context (B or A), and their behavioral response is observed. Our results show that 59 % of the rats responded to the CS by escaping to the light chamber, although they experienced only one CS-2s-US pairing. The OTTER task offers a flexible high throughput tool to study memory acquired incidentally after a single experience. Incidental acquisition of association between temporally discontinuous events is highly relevant to episodic memory formation.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.