Conditioning learning in an attentional task relates to age and ventricular expansion in a nonhuman primate (Microcebus murinus)

Wittkowski, Jennifer; Fritz, Rebecca Grace; Meier, Martin; Schmidtke, Daniel

doi:10.1016/j.bbr.2020.113053

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…However, a newly designed touchscreen-based discrimination task found the impaired acquisition of the stimulus-reward association in aged lemurs (Joly et al, 2014;Schmidtke et al, 2018Schmidtke et al, , 2020Wittkowski et al, 2021). Actually, all tested animals succeeded in acquiring the visual discrimination but aged animals needed more trials to reach the task criterion of 80% correct responses in two consecutive daily sessions.…”

Section: Conservation Of Procedural Memorymentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Such lack of impairment in this specific type of memory has been widely reported in rodents (Gilbert et al, 2009), other nonhuman primates (Rapp, 1990), and humans (Cohen & Squire, 1980; Squire, 1992). However, a newly designed touchscreen‐based discrimination task found the impaired acquisition of the stimulus‐reward association in aged lemurs (Joly et al, 2014; Schmidtke et al, 2018, 2020; Wittkowski et al, 2021). Actually, all tested animals succeeded in acquiring the visual discrimination but aged animals needed more trials to reach the task criterion of 80% correct responses in two consecutive daily sessions.…”

Section: Age‐related Cognitive Deficitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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Section: Conservation Of Procedural Memorymentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Age‐related Cognitive Deficitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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Learning performance of grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) during a visual discrimination task: effect of the stimuli’s emotional value

Mortessagne

Bovet²,

Nozières³

et al. 2023

Preprint

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While the interaction between emotions and cognition is relatively well known in humans, it remains to be explored in non-human primates, whose dedicated studies are carried out on a limited diversity of species, preventing us from discussing the evolutionary origin of this interaction. Here, we explored this cognition-emotion interaction in the grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus), often described as possessing ancestral characteristics, allowing us to better comprehend if this link appears soon in the phylogeny of primate. We tested whether emotions could modify the learning performance of 60 mouse lemurs during a visual discrimination task. In this task, individuals had to learn to discriminate between two platforms using emotionally valued visual stimuli and to jump on the target platform. Our results showed that individuals learning performance improved when distractors had an emotional valence compared to when they were neutral. Opposite, individuals had impaired learning performance when targets had an emotional valence compared to when they were neutral. These results are consistent with the cognitive avoidance pattern for negative stimuli reported in other studies. This study is the first to explore emotion in mouse lemurs and to demonstrate that the emotion-cognition interaction is already present in a lemur’s species.

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Cognitive performance of grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) during a discrimination learning task: Effect of the emotional valence of stimuli

Mortessagne,

Bovet,

Nozières

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Emotions are omnipresent in many animals’ lives. It is a complex concept that encompasses physiological, subjective, behavioural and cognitive aspects. While the complex relationship between emotion and cognition is well studied in humans, it has yet to be explored in other primate species, such as lemurs. In our study, we evaluated the performance of N=48 grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) in a discrimination learning task using visual emotional stimuli. We tested whether the type of visual stimulus (positive, negative or neutral) influenced the cognitive performance of mouse lemurs. Individuals had to learn to discriminate between two platforms according to the associated visual stimuli and to jump to the target platform (leading to a reward). Our main finding was that emotional stimuli, whether positive or negative in valence, impaired cognitive performance when used as a target. Specifically, the lowest success rate occurred when the target was associated with the emotional stimuli, and the highest success rate occurred when it was associated with neutral stimuli. Our results show a similar pattern to that found in other primate species and support the adaptative role of emotion. This study is the first to explore how emotions interfere with the cognitive abilities of a lemur species. This highlights the importance of acknowledging emotion in mouse lemurs as well as studying the emotion-cognition interaction in a wider range of primate species.

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Conditioning learning in an attentional task relates to age and ventricular expansion in a nonhuman primate (Microcebus murinus)

Cited by 3 publications

References 51 publications

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

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

Learning performance of grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) during a visual discrimination task: effect of the stimuli’s emotional value

Cognitive performance of grey mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) during a discrimination learning task: Effect of the emotional valence of stimuli

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