青、老年大鼠在Morris水迷宫中的学习记忆行为

本实验观察了22～24月龄老年大鼠和5～6月龄青年大鼠在Morris水迷宫中的学习记忆行为,并用定量分析方法比较两组动物在定位航行及空间搜索试验中的学习记忆,结果表明老年大鼠的寻找平台潜伏期明显延长,而其跨平台次数及在平台象限的游泳路线长度并未减少.提示24月龄老年大鼠获取学习记忆的能力受损伤而保持记忆的能力维持正常,这可能与二种功能衰老的不同速度及不同神经基础有关.

The Study of Memory and Learning of Aged and Young Rats in Morris Water Maze

Twenty male SD rats were divided into two groups : the young rats aged 5-6 monthes, weighing 180-200g and the aged rats 22-24 months, 300-350g. The Morris water maze was used to observed rat's memory and learning behavior. During a place-training experiment, aged rats exhibited acquisition deficits compared with young rats. The latency in each trial was longer in aged group than that in young group. With continued training, however, aged rats eventually achieved comparable, asymptotic levels of performance-it's annuli acrossing numbers and swim distance in platform quandrant did not differ from that of the young group. The aged group was heterogenous in the degree of impairments manifested by the individual animals; therefore it was suggested that the development of impairments may progress with age at different rates in various tasks and possibly in different underlying neu-roanatomical or neurochemical systems.