Phosphatidyl choline and avoidance performance in 17 month-old SEC/1ReJ mice

Male SEC/1ReJ mice aged 6 or 17 months were fed diets containing 0, 2, 4, and 8% added phosphatidyl choline. After 4 days on the test diets they were given 5 daily sessions of 100 trials each in the shuttle-box. The younger mice rapidly acquired an avoidance response and reached high, stable levels of performance. The older mice learned more slowly and reached significantly lower performance levels (p less than 0.01). Phosphatidyl choline had no effect on performance of young mice, while in the older mice the highest dose level of phosphatidyl choline increased avoidance performance by nearly 30% (p less than 0.05).