Rodent age-related impairments in discriminating perceptually similar objects parallel those observed in humans.

ABSTRACT: The ability to accurately remember distinct episodes is supported by high-level sensory discrimination. Performance on mnemonic similarity tasks, which test high-level discrimination, declines with advancing age in humans and these deficits have been linked to altered activity in hippocampal CA3 and dentate gyrus. Lesion studies in animal models, however, point to the perirhinal cortex as a brain region critical for sensory discriminations that serve memory. Reconciliation of the contributions of different regions within the cortical-hippocampal circuit requires the development of a discrimination paradigm comparable to the human mnemonic similarity task that can be used in rodents. In the present experiments, young and aged rats were cross-characterized on a spatial water maze task and tw

SUBMITTER: Johnson SA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5479708 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature