Impairment of procedural memory is a frequent and severe symptom in many neurological and psychiatric diseases as well as during aging. Our aim was to establish an assay in rats in which procedural learning and changes in performance can be studied on the long term. The work was done in the frame of a larger project aiming to establish a complex cognitive animal test battery of high translational value. The equipment was a 190-cm-diameter circular water tank where 12 flower pots were placed upside down in a circle with increasing distances (18–46 cm) between the adjacent ones. Male Lister Hooded and Long-Evans rats were allowed to move on the pots for 3 min. The arena was filled with shallow water to make the rats stay on the pots. Animals were obviously motivated to move around on the pots; however, the distance which required jumping (> 26 cm) meant a barrier for some of them. Development of motor skill was measured by the longest distance successfully spanned. A relatively flat bell-shaped age dependence was observed, with a peak at 13 months of age. A gradual decline in performance could be observed after the age of 20 months which preceded the appearance of overt physical weakness. Long-Evans rats showed more homogeneous performance and higher individual stability than Lister Hooded rats. The method is appropriate to study the development of motor learning and to follow its age-dependent changes. It may also serve as an assay for testing potential drugs for improving motor skills and/or procedural memory. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s11357-019-00073-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

This study aimed to assess how the capacity to acquire, form and consolidate motor memories might vary across different tasks and different groups (with and without motor expertise). 20 athletes and 21 non-athletes were tested on five motor tasks: a motor sequence task, a reaction time task, two visuo-manual tasks, and a balance task. Performance was measured before training (T0), immediately after training (T1), and 24 hours after training (T2), to assess motor acquisition and motor memory formation and consolidation. T2 performance was higher in both groups, without additional training, on the motor sequence task, reaction time task and one of the visuo-manual tasks (Pouring Task). Athletes had better baseline performance at TO than non-athletes on these tasks. Findings suggest that differential formation and consolidation processes underlie different motor tasks. Although athletes did not outperform non-athletes on motor memory consolidation, they were more efficient in acquiring novel tasks, perhaps because the required motor schemas might have been based on previously acquired ones.

Aim: The understanding of the neural correlates of motor learning and consolidation has seen significant progress in recent years. Such advances have afforded the development of better training plans and the potentiation of motor skill learning in sports, in neurological recovery or simply in everyday life. However, the variations in motor learning and consolidation across different ages are still not well understood. In order to investigate this, we assessed performance in two different tasks (Finger Tapping Sequence and Go/No-Go tasks) in four different Age groups (Children; Young Adults; Mature Adults, and Seniors). Materials and Methods:The two tasks were executed across three different time periods (T0, T1 and T2), during which performance was measured: Day 1. Baseline (T0) and Performance After Training -i.e. Learning (T1) and; Day 2. Consolidation Performance -24 hours post-T1 without any additional training (T2). Results:We show that the group of Seniors did not enhance performance 24 hours post-training in the Finger Tapping Sequence task, while all the other Age groups did. There were no differences in performance in Children, but age and sex interacted to enhance performance. This complex mechanism was shown to be task-specific. Moreover, none of the Age groups enhanced performance in T2 in the Go/No-Go Task, but we found a female advantage after practice in Mature Adults and Seniors. Conclusions:The influence of both Age and Sex in task performance and consolidation is to be taken into consideration in order to ameliorate training and potentiate individual capacities while delaying age-related impairments.