Obstacle Course enrichment enhances spatial object location memory in mice, outperforming enriched housing with a shortened sample phase¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · causal r2 · q2 · i3 large
Currency · newest study 2022 · checked against its sources 2026-10-26 (automated, 2 of 2 entries) · not reviewed by a person
Design limits · Gattas 2022 (2): the intervention came bundled with another change (read from the study by two models, 2026-10-26)

Subclaims¶

q2 i3 With a 24-h delay, OC and EH groups performed significantly better than the CC group on object location memory. → Gattas 2022 q2 i3 With a 7-min sample and 24-h delay, the OC group significantly outperformed the EH group and was the only group to discriminate the displaced object. → Gattas 2022 (2)

Evidence¶

Gattas 2022¶

Gattas, S., Collett, H. A., Huff, A. E., Creighton, S. D., Weber, S. E., Buckhalter, S. S., Manning, S. A., Ryait, H. S., McNaughton, B. L., & Winters, B. D. (2022). A rodent obstacle course procedure controls delivery of enrichment and enhances complex cognitive functions. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-022-00134-x

q2 · i3 · causal · r2

Object location memory experiment in the same four-group design (n = 40), run 5–6 months post-enrichment. Planned t-tests showed the OC group significantly differed from the CC group, t(18) = 4.340, p < 0.001, and EH differed from CC, t(18) = 3.136, p = 0.006, at 24 h.

"a repeated measures ANOVA revealed a signi ficant interaction between the length of delay and group, F(3, 36) = 4.294, p = 0.011, partial η2 = 0.264, and a signi ficant main effect of delay, F(1, 36) = 30.763, p < 0.001, partial η2 = 0.461;"

Gattas 2022 (2)¶

Gattas, S., Collett, H. A., Huff, A. E., Creighton, S. D., Weber, S. E., Buckhalter, S. S., Manning, S. A., Ryait, H. S., McNaughton, B. L., & Winters, B. D. (2022). A rodent obstacle course procedure controls delivery of enrichment and enhances complex cognitive functions. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-022-00134-x

q2 · i3 · causal · r2

OLM experiment with a shortened 7-min sample and 24-h delay in the same four-group design. At this suboptimal sample and increased delay, only mice in the OC group, t(9) = 2.585, p = 0.029, discriminated the displaced object.

"an ANOVA showed a signi ficant effect of group, F(3, 36) = 3.623, p = 0.022, partial η2 = 0.232, and independent samples t-tests revealed that the OC group showed an enhancement on task performance compared to the EH group, t(18) = −3.041, p = 0.007"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Spatial Ability — outcome: instruction changes it
• Visual Processing — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Both Obstacle Course and Control Course training enhance cognitive flexibility, reducing sessions needed for reversal learning in pairwise visual discrimination — related
• Obstacle Course enrichment enhances long-term object recognition memory in mice, exceeding the effects of enriched housing at long retention delays — related
• Obstacle Course enrichment supports view-invariant object recognition, with OC mice treating rotated objects as familiar while enriched-housing mice treated them as novel — related
• Obstacle Course enrichment enhances object category recognition memory, allowing category discrimination at a 1-h delay without exemplar preexposure — related
• Obstacle Course enrichment enhances cross-modal (tactile-to-visual) object recognition, with only the OC group discriminating at a 1-h delay — related