A&amp;#160;review on ocular findings in mouse lemurs: potential links to age and genetic background

Dubicanac, Marko; Radespiel, Ute; Zimmermann, Elke

doi:10.5194/pb-4-215-2017

Cited by 8 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 94 publications

(158 reference statements)

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“…Prior to cognitive testing, all individuals underwent an ophthalmological examination to check the functional (e.g. optokinetic nystagmus, general visual object tracking, and pupillary reflexes) and anatomical (lens, ocular pressure, retina) integrity of the animals’ visual apparatus (for methods see 37 , 38 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age affects procedural paired-associates learning in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)

Schmidtke

2021

Sci Rep

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The ability to associate memorized objects with their location in space gradually declines during normal aging and can drastically be affected by neurodegenerative diseases. This study investigates object-location paired-associates learning (PAL) in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus), a nonhuman primate model of brain aging. Touchscreen-based testing of 6 young adults (1–5 years) and 6 old adults (> 7 years) in the procedural rodent dPAL-task revealed significant age-related performance decline, evident in group differences in the percentage of correct decision during learning and the number of sessions needed to reach a predefined criterion. Response pattern analyses suggest decreased susceptibility to relative stimulus-position biases in young animals, facilitating PAL. Additional data from a subset of “overtrained” individuals (n = 7) and challenge sessions using a modified protocol (sPAL) further suggest that learning criteria routinely used in animal studies on PAL can underestimate the endpoint at which a stable performance is reached and that more conservative criteria are needed to improve construct validity of the task. To conclude, this is the first report of an age effect on dPAL and corroborates the role of mouse lemurs as valuable natural nonhuman primate models in aging research.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age affects procedural paired-associates learning in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)

Schmidtke

2021

Sci Rep

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“…42,500/1H, 01/15/2014; for details on animal housing, see Joly et al, 2014). As intact vision plays a vital role in touchscreen-based cognitive testing, all NHPs considered for the study had been checked for ocular pathologies by a veterinarian ophthalmologist before testing (for methods, compare Dubicanac et al, 2016; Dubicanac, Radespiel, & Zimmermann, 2017; Dubicanac, Strueve, et al, 2017). Only animals without any signs for impaired vision (e.g., prolonged pupillary reflex, corneal anomalies, uveitis, and advanced cataracts) were used as subjects.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

First comparative approach to touchscreen-based visual object–location paired-associates learning in humans (Homo sapiens) and a nonhuman primate (Microcebus murinus).

Schmidtke¹,

Ammersdörfer²,

Joly³

et al. 2018

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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A recent study suggests that a specific, touchscreen-based task on visual object-location paired-associates learning (PAL), the so-called Different PAL (dPAL) task, allows effective translation from animal models to humans. Here, we adapted the task to a nonhuman primate (NHP), the gray mouse lemur, and provide first evidence for the successful comparative application of the task to humans and NHPs. Young human adults reach the learning criterion after considerably less sessions (one order of magnitude) than young, adult NHPs, which is likely due to faster and voluntary rejection of ineffective learning strategies in humans and almost immediate rule generalization. At criterion, however, all human subjects solved the task by either applying a visuospatial rule or, more rarely, by memorizing all possible stimulus combinations and responding correctly based on global visual information. An error-profile analysis in humans and NHPs suggests that successful learning in NHPs is comparably based either on the formation of visuospatial associative links or on more reflexive, visually guided stimulus-response learning. The classification in the NHPs is further supported by an analysis of the individual response latencies, which are considerably higher in NHPs classified as spatial learners. Our results, therefore, support the high translational potential of the standardized, touchscreen-based dPAL task by providing first empirical and comparable evidence for two different cognitive processes underlying dPAL performance in primates. (PsycINFO Database Record

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Overview of age‐related changes in psychomotor and cognitive functions in a prosimian primate, the gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus): Recent advances in risk factors and antiaging interventions

Chaudron

Pifferi

Aujard

2021

American J Primatol

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Aging is not homogeneous in humans and the determinants leading to differences between subjects are not fully understood. Impaired glucose homeostasis is a major risk factor for cognitive decline in middle‐aged humans, pointing at the existence of early markers of unhealthy aging. The gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus), a small lemuriform Malagasy primate, shows relatively slow aging with decreased psychomotor capacities at middle‐age (around 5‐year old). In some cases (∼10%), it spontaneously leads to pathological aging. In this case, some age‐related deficits, such as severe cognitive decline, brain atrophy, amyloidosis, and glucoregulatory imbalance are congruent with what is observed in humans. In the present review, we inventory the changes occurring in psychomotor and cognitive functions during healthy and pathological aging in mouse lemur. It includes a summary of the cerebral, metabolic, and cellular alterations that occur during aging and their relation to cognitive decline. As nutrition is one of the major nonpharmacological antiaging strategies with major potential effects on cognitive performances, we also discuss its role in brain functions and cognitive decline in this species. We show that the overall approach of aging studies in the gray mouse lemur offers promising ways of investigation for understanding, prevention, and treatments of pathological aging in humans.

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A review on ocular findings in mouse lemurs: potential links to age and genetic background

Cited by 8 publications

References 94 publications

Age affects procedural paired-associates learning in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)

Age affects procedural paired-associates learning in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus)

First comparative approach to touchscreen-based visual object–location paired-associates learning in humans (Homo sapiens) and a nonhuman primate (Microcebus murinus).

Overview of age‐related changes in psychomotor and cognitive functions in a prosimian primate, the gray mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus): Recent advances in risk factors and antiaging interventions

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