Social housing protects against age-related working memory decline independently of physical enrichment in rats.

ABSTRACT: Longitudinal human studies suggest that as we age, sociality provides protective benefits against cognitive decline. However, little is known about the underlying neural mechanisms. Rodent studies, which are ideal for studying cognition, fail to examine the independent effects of social housing while controlling for physical enrichment in all groups. In this study, rats were socially housed or nonsocially housed throughout their lifespan and tested in the radial arm maze to measure working memory (WM) and reference memory longitudinally at 3 ages. In old age, exclusively, socially housed rats made significantly less WM errors than nonsocially housed rats, while reference memory errors did not differ between groups at any age. Anxiety, as assessed behaviorally and physiologically, could not

SUBMITTER: Templer VL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6349534 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature