Attention and memory in aged rats: Impact of lifelong environmental enrichment.
Neurobiol Aging
; 32(4): 718-36, 2011 Apr.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-19398248
ABSTRACT
Aged rodents exhibit memory and attention dysfunctions. Environmental enrichment (EE) attenuates memory impairments. Whether it may reduce attention deficits is not known. At the age of 1 month, Long-Evans female rats were placed in standard or EE conditions and tested after 3 (young), 12 (middle-aged) or 24 (aged) months of differential housing. Spatial reference memory was assessed in a water-maze task. Attention performance was evaluated in the five-choice serial reaction time (5-CSRT) task. EE improved spatial memory at all ages, but did not ameliorate 5-CSRT performance in young and middle-aged rats; it prevented, however, the degradation of attention performances detected in aged rats. The number of ChAT (+30 to +64%)- and p75(NTR)-positive (+35 to +44%) neurons was higher in the basal forebrain of aged enriched vs. standard rats, suggesting their EE-mediated protection. The weaker deficit of attention found in aged EE rats might be linked to a better survival in the very long term of neurons in the basalo-cortical system.
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Atenção
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Envelhecimento
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Aprendizagem em Labirinto
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Meio Ambiente
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Abrigo para Animais
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Memória
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2011
Tipo de documento:
Article