The study of behavioral dysfunctions
Year: 2000
Type: book
Abstract: The aim of the present study was to assess whether strains of rats which are available for gerontological research show the expected age-associated decline in spatial orientation performance in the Morris maze. The standard Morris water escape task, where a rat is required to find an invisible, submerged escape platform in a water tank, is a test system that has consistently been found to be sensitive to age-associated changes in spatial orientation performance. The spatial discrimination of adult and aged outbred Janvier Wistar (WISRJ) rats, young and old inbred Fischer 344 (F344) rats, and hybrid Fischer 344*Brown Norway (FBNF1) rats was compared in three separate experiments. In an additional experiment we assessed the possible influence of transport stress on the performance of aged F344 rats in the Morris water maze task. We conclude that gerontological or gerontopharmacological studies of spatial discrimination learning in the Morris task should not be performed with F344 rats. FBNF1 rats and WISRJ rats appear to be a better choice. We cannot comment on the usefulness of these rat strains for non-behavioral studies or for behavioral studies of aspects other than spatial discrimination learning.
Author: F. Josef van der Staay
Language: English
Topic: Memory and Neural Mechanisms
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1533914697