Medial prefrontal cortex stimulation disrupts observational learning in Barnes maze in rats

Observational learning, which improves one's own behavior by observing the adaptive behavior of others, has been experimentally demonstrated in primates and rodents in several behavioral studies, including our previous study. However, its neural mechanisms remain unclear. We electrically stimulated the brain regions of rats and disturbed their neural activities during observation periods in the observational learning task using Barnes maze. According to comparison of escaping latencies of the observer and model rats, the observer rats with stimulation of the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) showed no observational learning, whereas both of the observer rats with stimulation of the dorsal hippocampus and with no stimulation (control) showed observational learning. These results suggest that mPFC stimulation disrupts observational learning and confirms that the mPFC is an important brain region for it in rats.