Objectives: Most of studies conducted on spatial navigation as a model of human declarative memory employ static settings. Nonetheless, our real world is endlessly dynamic and both animal and humans need to interact with moving object or even environments.
Methods: Our laboratory has a long-term tradition in experimenting with novel moving-world tasks and study behavior of rats facing dynamic condition such as place avoidance in Carousel maze or Enemy avoidance task. For neurophysiological studies, Long-Evans rats from the breeding colony of the Institute of Physiology AS CR were used.
Results: Active place avoidance on Carousel is a very versatile task that can be adopted for testing cognitive coordination, substratalidiothesis, behavioral şexibility, working memory etc. The presentation will also show novel hippocampus-dependent Enemy avoidance task, utilizing a moving programmable robot. Specific effects of lesion and inactivation of brain structures will be also presented in the context of place avoidance, Morris water maze, recognition of object´s position and working memory and cognitive şexibility.
Conclusions: We conclude that dynamic aspect of spatial navigation can be incorporated into behavioral studies of cognition using moving goals to navigate to or avoid, and also by incorporating dynamic substrates, e.g. rotating arena.
Acknowledgements: This work was supported by GACR grant 14-03627S and IGA MZ CR NT13386, by AS CR M200111204 and by GACR P304/12/G069. We thank Jan Bures (1926-2012) for scientific education and inspiration.