The Peculiar Features of Cognitive Processes in Rats Exposed to a Hypomagnetic Field Using Moderate Magnetic Shielding

Abstract

© 2020, Pleiades Publishing, Inc. This paper is focused on the dynamics of the formation of conditioned responses in rats that experienced 14-day moderate magnetic shielding and were placed into a shelter setup when conducting the Barnes maze task. It was found that the acquisition rate of the conditioned active avoidance response was faster in rats under magnetic shielding conditions than that in the control animals. A direct accelerating effect of a moderate geomagnetic environment on the acquisition of the conditioned active avoidance response is thought to be extremely unlikely and the observed effect appears to be due to well-known biorhythm changes in pain sensitivity in hypomagnetic conditions associated with the development of hyperalgesia during the first week, which is an additional motivation for the formation of the conditioned active avoidance response in the Shelter setup. A two-phase change in pain sensitivity of male rats for a 14-day period was shown in the electrostimulation setup: hyperalgesia occurred during the first week and hypoalgesia was induced during the second week. The Barnes maze task did not reveal any differences between groups of control animals and experimental animals in recorded behavioral indices in hypomagnetic conditions within a 14-day period. Therefore, the accelerated formation of conditioned active avoidance response in rats under hypomagnetic conditions is most likely due to a significant increase in pain sensitivity during the first week of the experiment.