Giving robots the ability to learn without the guidance of a researcher is a practical method of developing more adaptable and intelligent systems. Self-Organizing Distinctive-State Abstraction (SODA) is an algorithm that allows a robot to learn routines from from raw sensorimotor inputs through training. The goal of our experiment was to implement SODA on a simulated version of the Khepera II ...

The effects of intracerebroventricular (ICV) injection of ethylcholine aziridinium ion (AF64A) (3 nmole/2 microliter, each lateral ventricule), a putative selective cholinotoxin, on learning behaviors and choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) activity were studied in rats. AF64A-treated rats (AF64A-rat) exhibited deficient performance in a passive avoidance task and a delayed alternation task in the...

Oscillatory activity is a candidate mechanism for providing frequency coding for the generation, storage and replay of sequential representations of events and episodes. We recorded local field potentials (LFPs) and spike activity in the striatum, a basal ganglia structure implicated in behavioral action-sequence learning and performance, as rats engaged in spontaneous and instructed behaviors ...

Some hippocampally-influenced affective and/or cognitive processes decline with aging. The role of androgens in this process is of interest. Testosterone (T) is aromatized to estrogen, and reduced to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which is converted to 5alpha-androstane, 3alpha, 17alpha-diol (3alpha-diol). To determine the extent to which some age-related decline in hippocampally-influenced behavio...

The Multiple T-maze (MTM) and the Barnes maze (BM) are land mazes used for the evaluation of spatial memory. The observation that mice are performing differently in individual mazes made us test the hypothesis that differences in cognitive performances in the two land mazes would be accompanied by differences in hippocampal protein levels. C57BL/6J mice were tested in the BM and in the MTM, hip...

Materials and methods: Six Control group sows and six treatment (Banana) group sows were used, each with 10 piglets. Treatment consisted of daily topical application of isoamyl acetate (banana scent) on the skin of the sows’ mammary glands during the 21 days of suckling. Preference of the piglets for the banana scent was tested with a V-maze at 4 and 21 days of age. After weaning, pigs were reg...

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION. From mass incarceration to targeted policing: Introduction to the Special Issue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Richard Rosenfeld EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Overview of “Imprisonment and crime: Can both be reduced?” . . . . . . 9 Steven N. Durlauf, Daniel S. Nagin RESEARCH ARTICLE. Impr...