The effects of aging in rats on working and reference memory performance in a spatial holeboard discrimination task

doi:10.1016/0163-1047(90)90226-V

Behavioral and Neural Biology

Volume 53, Issue 3, May 1990, Pages 356-370

https://doi.org/10.1016/0163-1047(90)90226-V Get rights and content

The effects of aging on spatial memory performance of rats was studied in a holeboard task in which 4 of 16 holes were baited with food. Brown—Norway rats of five ages (4, 13, 19, 25, and 30 months) received a total of 80 acquisition trials. A clear age-related decline of spatial working and reference memory performance was found. The decline was most profound between 19 and 25 months of age. The speed of visiting holes and the development of a preferred pattern of hole-visits did not influence spatial discrimination performance. Correlational analysis supported the view that the working and reference memory measures represent distinct aspects of spatial memory.

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In the holeboard, the development of a response strategy for visiting the holes that contain food might facilitate spatial discrimination performance; the allocentric orientation is replaced by egocentric orientation. For example, aging studies have shown that it is mainly younger rats that develop a preferred pattern of visiting the holes of a holeboard task when the animals are always released from the same start position, whereas older rats fail to develop a fixed food search pattern (van der Staay et al., 1986, 1990c). Search strategies have been studied using the Morris water escape task, the radial arm maze, and the Barnes maze, but few studies have investigated strategies in holeboard tasks (e.g. Oades and Isaacson, 1978; Oades, 1982).
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¹: Financial support for the purchase of old animals was provided by the Stimuleringsfonds Gerontologie (SOOM-Grant 83.259, Project 830813).

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The effects of aging in rats on working and reference memory performance in a spatial holeboard discrimination task

Neurobiology of Aging

Behavioral and Neural Biology

Behavioral and Neural Biology

Neurobiology of Aging

Neurobiology of Aging

Neurobiology of Aging

Neurobiology of Aging

Behavioral and Neural Biology

Behavioral and Neural Biology

Biological Psychology

Behavioral Biology

Learning and Motivation

Neuropsychologia

Behavioral Brain Research

Behavioral and Neural Biology

Pharmacology, Biochemistry & Behavior

Memory deficits associated with senescence: A neurophysiological and behavioral study in the rat

Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology

Spatial memory deficit in senescent rats

Canadian Journal of Psychology

Pathology of aging rats

A PASCAL program to perform the Bonferroni multistage multiple-correlation procedure

Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers

Improvement of an 8-arm maze performance in aged Fischer 344 rats with 3,4-diaminopyridine

Experimental Aging Research

Observations on the central nervous system of the rat: Functional changes in relation to ageing