Rats perceive the change in motion direction of a cursor on PC monitor

Recent studies have demonstrated the capabilities of rodents for manipulation of a joystick to control the movements of a sipper tube or receive rewards based on displacements of a manipulandum. However, a behavioral paradigm where the rats perceive the changes in the motion direction of a cursor on PC monitor has not been introduced yet. In this work, we present a novel behavioral paradigm that allows rats to control a cursor on a PC monitor by operating levers for reaching targets. The control of the cursor is performed in one-dimensional space depending on the limited cognitive and visual capabilities of rats. Shaping procedures were developed to move the cursor toward a selected target and correct the trajectory of the cursor using timely lever press/release sequences when there is a change in the motion direction. Based on our preliminary studies with two head-fixed rats, the lever response times were significantly different for straight and changing trajectories of the cursor moving toward the target (p<0.005). These results indicate that the rats have the visual ability to detect the change in the trajectory of a cursor based on the feedback provided by a PC monitor. We believe these results demonstrate the potential of rodents for studies towards understanding the neural mechanisms of closed-loop control of cursor using levers/joystick or brain-machine interfaces. Our ongoing work is aimed at revealing the learning curves of rodents for correcting the discrepancies in cursor trajectories.