Hamster maze science fair project1/14/2024 ![]() The transition from juvenile social play to adult hamster aggression corresponds with engagement of neural ensembles controlling aggression. In hamsters, social play is characterized by attacks to the head in early puberty, which gradually transitions to the flanks in late puberty. A broad set of cortical, limbic, and striatal regions regulate the display of social play in rats. Juvenile rats play by competing for opportunities to pin one another and attack their partner’s neck. In this review, we compare social play behavior of hamsters and rats and underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Syrian hamsters show complex social play behavior and provide a valuable animal model for delineating the neurobiological mechanisms and functions of social play. The choice of a final return vector may therefore imply stepwise information processing, whereby stored and actual values of visual information are compared with cues generated during the preceding outward journey. well before the initiation of the return trip. The light spot exerted its influence mainly during the phase of food collection, just before the subjects started to return to their nest however, its impact remained noticeable even when it was presented only briefly at the beginning of the hoarding excursion, i.e. While the subjects depended primarily on the light spot as a stable directional cue during minor conflicts, their homing behaviour became less homogeneous and was mainly controlled by self-generated signals when the conflict was increased. Conflicts between different categories of directional information were induced by shifting once or repeatedly the light cue from its standard angular position with respect to the nest entrance. The subjects' choice of a particular homing direction was tested in conditions where the animals could use simultaneously a weak light spot from outside the arena and self-generated signals derived from the outward journey to the food source. I'm glad I happened to have an albino baby at the time (I bred hamsters for myself), since that ended up working well as a control to verify that a color-blind hamster wouldn't be able to tell the two circles apart.Golden hamsters, Mesocricetus auratus W., tend to return directly from a food source at the centre of an experimental arena to their peripheral nest. the one that couldn't see blue and failed miserably, only getting a treat when it got lucky, was an albino (which was expected to be fully color-blind). The results were that all but one hamster aced the tests by the end and therefore, could see blue. I ran the tests the same as the first time - starting always on the right, then alternating, then no pattern doing 10 tests per hammy per day. we used a light meter to figure out which shade of gray matched the blue exactly so that they couldn't tell the difference because of one being brighter than the other. I used a piece of blue construction paper to make the colored circle, then my mom xeroxed it in a bunch of different shades of gray. I only had time to test one color, so I picked the one most likely to be visible if they only had partial color vision - blue. In 7th grade, I did another experiment using hamsters and the skinner box - this time to see if they could see colors. once they mastered that, I started placing the shapes totally at random so there was no pattern for them to follow and they HAD to decide based on shape. once they always beelined for that door when placed in the box, I started switching the shapes between each run (I did 10 tries per hammy per night), so the circle would be on the right door, then the left, then the right, etc. the circle door was the correct one because I figured circles looked more like seedsĪt first, the door on the right was always the circle door and the one where they got a treat as soon as they went through it. ![]() ![]() I put something good smelling on top of the T where the inside walls met (so that they couldn't use their sense of smell to figure out which door was the correct one) and taped a little paper circle to one door and a paper triangle to the other. The skinner box was basically one big room and two little rooms with hammy-operable doors leading into them (my mom and I made it out of plywood and used dollhouse doors). I proved hamsters could learn using a maze and a skinner box. I did some science projects with hamsters as a kid.
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