A Modified Barnes Maze for Juvenile Rats.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Valibeigi N
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6294133 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:The neural bases of cognition may be greatly informed by relating temporally defined developmental changes in behavior with concurrent alterations in neural function. A robust improvement in performance in spatial learning and memory tasks occurs at 3 wk of age in rodents. We reported that the developmental increase of spontaneous alternation in a Y-maze was related to changes in temporal dynamics of fast glutamatergic synaptic transmission in the hippocampus. We also showed that, during allothetic behaviors in the Y-maze, network oscillation power increased at frequency bands known to support spatial learning and memory in adults. However, there are no discrete learning and memory phases during free exploration in the Y-maze. Thus, we adapted the Barnes maze for use with juvenile rats. Following a single platform exposure in dim light on the day before training (to encourage exploration), animals were trained on the subsequent 2 d in bright light to find a hidden escape box and then underwent a memory test 24 h later. During escape training, the older animals learned the task in 1 d, while the younger animals required 2 d and did not reach the performance of older animals. Long-term memory performance was also superior in the older animals. Thus, we have validated the use of the Barnes maze for this developmental period and established a timeline for the ontogeny of spatial navigation ability in this maze around 3 wk of age. Subsequent work will pair in vivo recording of hippocampal oscillations and single units with this task to help identify how hippocampal maturation might relate to performance improvements.
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Project description:Excessive and prolonged intake of highly palatable, high fat (HF) foods contributes to the pathogenesis of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and cognitive impairment. Exercise can restore energy homeostasis and suppress HF diet preference in rats. However, it is unclear if exercise confers similar protection against the detrimental outcomes associated with a chronic HF diet preference and feeding in both sexes. We used our wheel running (WR) and two-diet choice (chow vs. HF) paradigm to investigate the efficacy of exercise in reversing HF diet-associated metabolic and cognitive dysregulation in rats, hypothesizing that beneficial effects of exercise would be more pronounced in males. All WR rats showed HF diet avoidance upon running initiation, and males, but not females, had a prolonged reduction in HF diet preference. Moreover, exercise only improved glucose tolerance and insulin profile in males. Compared to sedentary controls, all WR rats improved learning to escape on the Barnes maze. Only WR females increased errors made during subsequent reversal learning trials, indicating a sex-dependent effect of exercise on behavioral flexibility. Taken together, our results suggest that exercise is more effective at attenuating HF-associated metabolic deficits in males, and highlights the importance of developing sex-specific treatment interventions for obesity and cognitive dysfunction.
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Project description:BACKGROUND: DIP (diaphanous interacting protein)/WISH (WASP interacting SH3 protein) is a protein involved in cytoskeletal signaling which regulates actin cytoskeleton dynamics and/or microtubules mainly through the activity of Rho-related proteins. Although it is well established that: 1) spine-head volumes change dynamically and reflect the strength of the synapse accompanying long-term functional plasticity of glutamatergic synaptic transmission and 2) actin organization is critically involved in spine formation, the involvement of DIP/WISH in these processes is unknown. RESULTS: We found that DIP/WISH-deficient hippocampal CA1 neurons exhibit enhanced long-term potentiation via modulation of both pre- and post-synaptic events. Consistent with these electrophysiological findings, DIP/WISH-deficient mice, particularly at a relatively young age, found the escape hole more rapidly in the Barnes maze test. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that DIP/WISH deletion improves performance in the Barnes maze test in mice probably through increased hippocampal long-term potentiation.
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Project description:Food restriction has been reported to have positive effects on cognition. This study examines how another environmental factor, daylength, can alter the impact of food restriction on the brain and behavior. Female California mice (Peromyscus californicus), housed on either long days (16?h of light and 8?h of darkness) or short days (8?h of light and 16?h of darkness), were restricted to 80% of their normal baseline food intake or provided with food ad libitum. Testing in a Barnes maze revealed that the effects of food restriction depended on photoperiod, and that these effects differed for acquisition vs. reversal learning. During acquisition testing, food restriction increased latency to finding the target hole in short-day mice but not in long-day mice. In reversal testing, food restriction decreased latency to finding the target hole in long-day mice but not in short-day mice. Latency to finding the hole was positively and independently correlated with both errors and time spent freezing, suggesting that changes in both spatial learning and anxiety-like behavior contributed to performance. Short days increased hippocampal expression of the synaptic protein, synapsin I, which was reversed by food restriction. Short days also reduced plasma corticosterone levels, but diet had no effect. There was no effect of diet or photoperiod on hippocampal expression of the glial marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein. The present findings suggest that, in female California mice, the differential effects of food restriction on acquisition and reversal learning are photoperiod-dependent. These results justify further testing of the relationship between food restriction and hippocampal synapsin I in the context of spatial learning.
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Project description:The aim of this study was to investigate whether the differences in memory decline associated with aging are a result of differences in gene expression. We first categorized age-unimpaired and age-impaired rats based on their performance in the Morris water maze, when compared to young rats. Then we isolated messenger RNA from the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus of each animal to interrogate Affymetrix RAE 230A rat genome microarrays. Supervised statistical analysis of the different groups of aged animals recognized 85 genes (p<0.005) that were significantly different in the dentate gyrus of aged rats that had learned the Morris water maze (MWM) paradigm when compared to learning impaired and a number of controls for stress, exercise and non-spatial learning. In addition, statistical analysis of the microarray data that included young and aged rats identified 1129 genes (p<0.005) that were differentially expressed between aged and young rats independent of behavior, but due to aging alone. Keywords: behavior comparison, age comparison
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