Sexually dimorphic performance has been observed across humans and rodents in many spatial tasks. In general, these spatial tasks do not dissociate the use of environmental and self-movement cues. Previous work has demonstrated a role for self-movement cue processing in organizing open field behavior; however, these studies have not directly compared female and male movement characteristics. The current study examined the organization of open field behavior under dark conditions in female and male rats. Significant differences between female and male rats were observed in the location of stopping behavior relative to a cue and the topography exhibited during lateral movements. In contrast, no sex differences were observed on measures used to detect self-movement cue processing deficits. These results provide evidence that female and male rats are similar in their use of self-movement cues to organize open field behavior; however, other factors may be contributing to differences in performance.

在许多空间任务中，已经在人类和啮齿动物中观察到了性二态性表现。一般来说，这些空间任务不会分离环境和自我运动线索的使用。以前的工作已经证明了自我运动线索处理在组织开放领域行为中的作用；然而，这些研究并没有直接比较女性和男性的运动特征。目前的研究检查了雌性和雄性大鼠在黑暗条件下的开放场行为的组织。雌性和雄性大鼠在停止行为相对于提示的位置和横向运动期间表现出的地形方面存在显着差异。相比之下，在用于检测自我运动线索处理缺陷的措施上没有观察到性别差异。这些结果证明雌性和雄性大鼠在使用自我运动线索来组织野外行为方面是相似的；但是，其他因素可能会导致性能差异。