Effects of opiate antagonists on spatial memory in young and aged rats

Gallagher, Michela; Bostock, Elizabeth; King, Richard A.

doi:10.1016/s0163-1047(85)90688-0

Cited by 65 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Both young and old rats showed improvement over trials in the visual discrimination version of the task (F (1,11) ϭ 1.96; p Ͻ 0.04), with no effect of age on performance (F (1,9) ϭ 0.36; p Ͻ 0.56). Thus, consistent with previous reports (e.g., Gage et al, 1984;Gallagher et al, 1985;Barnes et al, 1996) the old rats were selectively impaired, compared with young rats, on the spatial version of this task.…”

Section: Effect Of Age On Spatial and Visual Discrimination Behaviorssupporting

confidence: 92%

“…In rodents, age deficits are observed in a variety of spatial learning and memory tasks (Barnes, 1979;Wallace et al, 1980;deToledoMorrell et al, 1984;Gage et al, 1984;Barnes and McNaughton, 1985;Gallagher et al, 1985;Gallagher and Pelleymonter, 1988). These effects cannot be f ully accounted for by sensory or motor deficits (Rapp et al, 1987;Gallagher and Pelleymonter, 1988;Gage et al, 1989), suggesting that alterations in hippocampal function with age may contribute to their etiology.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Effect of Aging on Experience-Dependent Plasticity of Hippocampal Place Cells

et al. 1997

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The firing characteristics of 1437 CA1 pyramidal neurons were studied in relation to both spatial location and the phase of the theta rhythm in healthy young and old rats performing a simple spatial task on a rectangular track. The old rats had previously been found to be deficient on the Morris spatial learning task. Age effects on the theta rhythm per se were minimal. Theta amplitude and frequency during rapid eye movement sleep were virtually identical. During behavior, theta frequency was slightly reduced with age. In both groups, cell firing occurred at progressively earlier phases of the theta rhythm as the rat traversed the place field of the cell (i.e., there was "phase precession," as reported by others). The net phase shift did not differ between age groups. The main finding of the study was a loss of experience-dependent plasticity in the place fields of old rats. During the first lap around the track on each day, the initial sizes of the place fields were the same between ages; however, place fields of young rats, but not old, expanded significantly during the first few laps around the track in a given recording session. As the place fields expanded, the rate of change of firing with phase slowed accordingly, so that the net phase change remained constant. Thus changes in field size and phase precession are coupled. A deficit in plasticity of place fields in old rats may lead to a less accurate population code for spatial location.

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Section: Effect Of Age On Spatial and Visual Discrimination Behaviorssupporting

confidence: 92%

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confidence: 99%

The Effect of Aging on Experience-Dependent Plasticity of Hippocampal Place Cells

et al. 1997

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“…As noted previously, opioid antagonists have been found to enhance memory Gallagher, Bostock, & King, 1985) and opioid agonists, such as morphine, to suppress memory (Spain & Newman, 1991). Furthermore, infusion of ~-endorphin into the medial septal area has been shown to reduce theta activity in the hippocampus and produce significant decrements in spatial working memory (Bostock et aL, 1988;Wan et aL, 1995).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Effects of Predator-Induced Stress and Age on Working Memory in Rats

et al. 1998

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The effects of age and predator-induced stress, by exposing rats to a cat, were examined during subsequent testing of spatial working memory. Male rats (3 months and 20 months of age) were trained on a spatial delayed-alternation task using an elevated T maze. After subgroups were given intermittent protected-exposure sessions over a 3-day period to cats or to a control condition, they were tested on the working memory task. The old rats took more trials to reach training criterion. Overall , both stress-exposed groups exhibited a decline in accuracy 24 hr later and recovered completely during the subsequent test sessions. Surprisingly, young stressed rats showed significantly greater decrements in accuracy than old stressed rats. However, exposure to the stressor resulted in decreases in response speed that were comparable for both age groups. These findings are discussed in terms of possible changes in glucocorticoids , plasma corticosterone, and endogenous opioids that are known to be affected by age and stress and have been shown to influence spatial working memory.

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“…This age-related spatial deficit in the Morris water task is not unique, given that aged rats and rats with hippocampal damage also exhibit deficits in performance on other spatial tasks, such as the radial arm maze (Barnes, 1979;Barnes et al, 1989;Gallagher et al, 1985;Jarrard, 1983;Olton and Samuleson, 1976), the T-maze (Bannerman et al, 2001;Rawlins and Olton, 1982), and the Barnes circular maze (Barnes, 1979;Barnes, 1988;Barnes and McNaughton, 1985;Barnes et al, 1989;Barnes et al, 1990). In addition, it has been demonstrated that aged animals exhibiting behavioral hippocampus-dependent deficits also exhibit different hippocampal physiological and morphological profiles compared to both young and old unimpaired animals (for a review see Geinisman et al, 1995), certain aspects of which will also be considered shortly.…”

Section: Spatial Navigationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The aging hippocampus: A multi-level analysis in the rat

et al. 2006

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The purpose of the current thesis was twofold: (1) to examine various factors that might be contributing to age-related learning and memory deficits specifically related to the hippocampus, and (2) to validate our rat model of aging, employing a multilevel analysis. We found age-related deficits on both spatial and non-spatial hippocampus-dependent tasks that were accompanied by structural alterations observed both in vivo (volume, but not neuronal metabolic function) and post mortem (neuronal density and neurogenesis, but not synaptic or mitochondrial density). Furthermore, our results suggest that the observed hippocampal structural changes, namely decreased volume and neurogenesis, predict learning and memory deficits, and both can be accounted for by neurogenic reduction. In addition, the above-mentioned pattern of age-related deficits closely resembles that seen in humans, suggesting the present rat version of aging to be a very useful model for investigating hippocampal aging in humans.

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Effects of opiate antagonists on spatial memory in young and aged rats

Cited by 65 publications

References 16 publications

The Effect of Aging on Experience-Dependent Plasticity of Hippocampal Place Cells

The Effect of Aging on Experience-Dependent Plasticity of Hippocampal Place Cells

Effects of Predator-Induced Stress and Age on Working Memory in Rats

The aging hippocampus: A multi-level analysis in the rat

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