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Development of maze navigation by tufted capuchins (Cebus apella).

ABSTRACT: Theories of spatial navigation hypothesize that animals use vector or topological information to choose routes, often including detours, to move objects or themselves to goals. We assessed adult capuchin monkeys' (Cebus apella) navigation through 192 virtual two-dimensional mazes that incorporated detour problems. Six monkeys initially were significantly less likely to choose the correct paths when detours were required than when not. Three of the six monkeys repeatedly practiced the 192 mazes to asymptotic mastery; the other three did not practice the mazes again. In a subsequent transfer test, each monkey made correct choices equivalently often on familiar and novel mazes, which suggests that they used general planning skills for maze navigation. Of the three monkeys that practiced the 192 maze-set repeatedly, one efficiently detoured and the other two significantly improved detouring compared to their initial performance. Two monkeys, contrary to their performance when completing the 192 maze-set for the first time, made correct choices at the same rate as chimpanzees. Some evidence suggested that two monkeys used topological information, but utilization of vector information was obvious for all monkeys. Our findings suggest that the boundaries of any individual's navigational abilities are not predicted by species, but depend on experience.

SUBMITTER: Pan J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3434124 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Development of maze navigation by tufted capuchins (Cebus apella).

Pan Jing J Kennedy Erica H EH Pickering Tomas T Menzel Charles R CR Stone Brian W BW Fragaszy Dorothy M DM

Behavioural processes 20101205 2

Theories of spatial navigation hypothesize that animals use vector or topological information to choose routes, often including detours, to move objects or themselves to goals. We assessed adult capuchin monkeys' (Cebus apella) navigation through 192 virtual two-dimensional mazes that incorporated detour problems. Six monkeys initially were significantly less likely to choose the correct paths when detours were required than when not. Three of the six monkeys repeatedly practiced the 192 mazes t ...[more]

PMID: 21138761

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Project description:The evolution of gastric carcinogenesis remains largely unknown. We established two gastric carcinogenesis models in New-World nonhuman primates. In the first model, ACP03 gastric cancer cell line was inoculated in 18 animals. In the second model, we treated 6 animals with N-methyl-nitrosourea (MNU). Animals with gastric cancer were also treated with Canova immunomodulator. Clinical, hematologic, and biochemical, including C-reactive protein, folic acid, and homocysteine, analyses were performed in this study. MYC expression and copy number was also evaluated. We observed that all animals inoculated with ACP03 developed gastric cancer on the 9(th) day though on the 14(th) day presented total tumor remission. In the second model, all animals developed pre-neoplastic lesions and five died of drug intoxication before the development of cancer. The last surviving MNU-treated animal developed intestinal-type gastric adenocarcinoma observed by endoscopy on the 940(th) day. The level of C-reactive protein level and homocysteine concentration increased while the level of folic acid decreased with the presence of tumors in ACP03-inoculated animals and MNU treatment. ACP03 inoculation also led to anemia and leukocytosis. The hematologic and biochemical results corroborate those observed in patients with gastric cancer, supporting that our in vivo models are potentially useful to study this neoplasia. In cell line inoculated animals, we detected MYC immunoreactivity, mRNA overexpression, and amplification, as previously observed in vitro. In MNU-treated animals, mRNA expression and MYC copy number increased during the sequential steps of intestinal-type gastric carcinogenesis and immunoreactivity was only observed in intestinal metaplasia and gastric cancer. Thus, MYC deregulation supports the gastric carcinogenesis process. Canova immunomodulator restored several hematologic measurements and therefore, can be applied during/after chemotherapy to increase the tolerability and duration of anticancer treatments.

Project description:BackgroundCan non-human animals comprehend and employ symbols? The most convincing empirical evidence comes from language-trained apes, but little is known about this ability in monkeys. Tokens can be regarded as symbols since they are inherently non-valuable objects that acquire an arbitrarily assigned value upon exchange with an experimenter. Recent evidence suggested that capuchin monkeys, which diverged from the human lineage 35 million years ago, can estimate, represent and combine token quantities. A fundamental and open question is whether monkeys can reason about symbols in ways similar to how they reason about real objects.Methodology/principal findingsHere we examined this broad question in the context of economic choice behavior. Specifically, we assessed whether, in a symbolic context, capuchins' preferences satisfy transitivity--a fundamental trait of rational decision-making. Given three options A, B and C, transitivity holds true if A > or = B, B > or = C and A > or = C (where > or = indicates preference). In this study, we trained monkeys to exchange three types of tokens for three different foods. We then compared choices monkeys made between different types of tokens with choices monkeys made between the foods. Qualitatively, capuchins' preferences revealed by the way of tokens were similar to those measured with the actual foods. In particular, when choosing between tokens, monkeys displayed strict economic preferences and their choices satisfied transitivity. Quantitatively, however, values measured by the way of tokens differed systematically from those measured with the actual foods. In particular, for any pair of foods, the relative value of the preferred food increased when monkeys chose between the corresponding tokens.Conclusions/significanceThese results indicate that indeed capuchins are capable of treating tokens as symbols. However, as they do so, capuchins experience the cognitive burdens imposed by symbolic representation.

Dataset Information

Development of maze navigation by tufted capuchins (Cebus apella).

Publications

Development of maze navigation by tufted capuchins (Cebus apella).

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