Late enrichment maintains accurate recent and remote spatial memory only in aged rats that were unimpaired when middle aged.

ABSTRACT: Exposure of rodents to a stimulating environment has beneficial effects on some cognitive functions that are impaired during physiological aging, and especially spatial reference memory. The present study investigated whether environmental enrichment rescues these functions in already declining subjects and/or protects them from subsequent decline. Subgroups of 17-mo-old female rats with unimpaired versus impaired performance in a spatial reference memory task (Morris water maze) were housed until the age of 24 mo in standard or enriched environment. They were then trained in a second reference memory task, conducted in a different room than the first, and recent (1 d) and remote (10 d) memory were assessed. In unimpaired subgroups, spatial memory declined from 17 to 24 mo in rats housed i

SUBMITTER: Fuchs F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4880144 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature