Prenatal choline availability, exposure time thresholds, and object recognition memory in adult Sprague Dawley rats
Year: 2015
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Choline is an essential nutrient for early brain development and cognition. Previous research has shown that cholinergic functioning is important for recognition memory. In rats, a prenatally supplemented choline diet can protect against memory consolidation deficits. However, whether greater choline availability affects the various memory encoding processes that precede consolidation is unknown. Furthermore, despite two decades of use as a behavioral measure for recognition memory, adequate study time for encoding a familiar object in the novel object recognition task has yet to be established. The present set of experiments sought to answer these questions by assessing object recognition memory following assorted exposure times (20, 25, and 30 seconds) in rats given standard and supplemented prenatal dietary treatments of choline. The study revealed that rats with greater prenatal choline availability required less time to properly encode an object, and, by consequence, produce adequate memory for it later on.
Author: Waylin Yu
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1613659794