Light deprivation related changes of strategy selection in the radial maze

During the early postnatal age environmental signals underlie development of sensory systems. The visual system is considered as an appropriate system for evaluation of the role of sensory experience in postnatal development of sensory systems. In this study we evaluated the effect of visual deprivation on the usage of visuospatial cues in navigation of radial arm maze. Light (LR) and dark reared (DR) rats were trained for correct entries and adjacent arms tasks. Our results indicated that both the LR and DR animals equally entered correct arms. In the adjacent arms task, however, the control group significantly outperformed the DR animals. Also, while the LR males and females differently performed the tasks the DR group represented no sex differences in their performances. These findings suggest that the lack of visual experience is likely to influence the strategy selection and sex differences as well. Also the difference between performances of the LR and DR animals is probably due to the males rather than females behaviour.