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Knowing which and knowing what: a potential mouse model for age-related human declarative memory decline
A Marighetto1, N Etchamendy, K Touzani
1CNRS, UMR-5807, Lab. Neurosciences Comportementales & Cognitives, Talence, France. a.marighetto@neurocog.u-bordeaux.fr
The European Journal of Neuroscience
|October 6, 1999
Summary
Aging selectively impairs simultaneous memory recall in mice, unlike successive recall, mirroring human memory loss. This study highlights how memory expression differs with age.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Psychology
- Gerontology
Background:
- The study builds upon prior research on fornix lesions and memory in rats.
- It investigates memory deficits in aged mice, aiming to model human senescence-related memory loss.
Purpose of the Study:
- To extend findings on memory deficits from rats to a mouse model.
- To investigate how aging affects different forms of memory expression in mice.
- To assess the selective impact of aging on declarative memory.
Main Methods:
- A two-stage radial maze paradigm was used with aged mice.
- Experiments involved simultaneous (paired) and successive (go/no-go) odor-guided discrimination tasks.
- Memory expression was assessed by varying arm presentation between learning and testing phases.
Main Results:
- Aged mice showed impairment in learning simultaneous discriminations.
- Aged mice were not impaired in successive go/no-go discriminations.
- Two forms of memory expression for the same experience were differentially affected by aging.
Conclusions:
- Aging selectively impairs simultaneous memory recall but not successive recall in mice.
- This selective deficit in aged mice resembles findings in rats with hippocampal damage.
- The study demonstrates a specific deleterious effect of aging on memory.