Sense of space: Tactile sense for exploratory behavior of roots.

In soil, plant roots grow in heterogeneous environments. Plant roots are always facing the difficulty of searching effectively the patchy natural resources, such as water, oxygen, ions and mineral nutrition. Numerous studies reported that root apex navigation enables roots to explore complex environments. In this short communication, we characterize how growing maize roots explore narrow space available with two experimental settings: tactile exploration of narrow glass tube and circumnutation in free space. We also discuss root growth in the soil in terms of foraging behavior guided by the sensory root apex.

The effects of social isolation on the exploring behavior and working memory in mice / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

Objective To study the effect of social isolation( SI) on the exploratory behavior and working memory in mice. Methods The Kunming mice of postnatal 21 days were divided into the control group,SI 2 weeks group,SI 2 weeks gregarious group,SI 4 weeks group and SI 8 weeks group,according to randomized design with ten animals each. All isolated mice were isolated for 2, 4 and 8 weeks respectively, the gregarious group were housed under normal grouped housing enviroment after isolation until adult, the mice with the relative same age were control groups. All animals were measured for exploratory behavior and working memory by performing open field and T?maze after the treatment. Results In the open field,compared to the relative control group,the central area of the total time in the SI 4 weeks group(0.07±0.04) was less than the control (0.10±0.04) obviously. The central area percentage of total time in SI 8 weeks group (0.64±0.12) were more than the control (0.43±0.08). In the T?maze,the alteration times in SI 2 weeks group (first day (5.92±0.79),second day (6.67±1.3),third day (7.42±1.08),fourth day (8.17±1.27)) were less than the control (first day (6.80±1.14); second day (7.60± 0.84);third day (8.30±0.95);forth day (9.20±1.32)). However,the alteration times of gregarious group showed no obvious change. Both the alteration times of SI 4 weeks (8.18±1.99) in the second day and that of SI 8 weeks (8.29±3.04) in the forth day were more than the control (6.60±2.11) and (7.80±2.53) respectively.Conclu?sions Working memory of SI 2 weeks rats decrease,which can be improved by the resocialization.SI 4 weeks and 8 weeks rats show the decreasing exploring ability and increasing anxiety and work memory.