Hippocampal Subregion Transcriptomic Profiles Reflect Strategy Selection during Cognitive Aging.

ABSTRACT: Age-related cognitive impairments are associated with differentially expressed genes (DEGs) linked to defined neural systems; however, studies examining multiple regions of the hippocampus fail to find links between behavior and transcription in the dentate gyrus (DG). We hypothesized that use of a task requiring intact DG function would emphasize molecular signals in the DG associated with a decline in performance. We used a water maze beacon discrimination task to characterize young and middle-age male F344 rats, followed by a spatial reference memory probe trial test. Middle-age rats showed increased variability in discriminating two identical beacons. Use of an allocentric strategy and formation of a spatial reference memory were not different between age groups; however, older animals

SUBMITTER: Smith G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7326352 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature