Age-related Deficits in Recognition Memory are Protocol-Dependent.

The perirhinal cortex (PRh) is a critical mediator of recognition memory, and a wealth of evidence points to impairment in PRh function with age. Despite this evidence, age-related deficits in recognition memory are not consistently observed. This may be partially due to the fact that older animals also have well-established deficits in hippocampal function, and many protocols that assess perirhinal function are also sensitive to hippocampal damage.

Chronic corticosterone-induced impaired cognitive flexibility is not due to suppressed adult hippocampal neurogenesis.

Hippocampal neurogenesis has been implicated in the etiology of depression. Recent studies suggest new neurons add flexibility to hippocampal-dependent learning and memory. We hypothesized that suppressed hippocampal neurogenesis may contribute to impaired cognitive flexibility associated with depression.

A maternal diet high in saturated fat impairs offspring hippocampal function in a sex-specific manner.

While a maternal diet high in saturated fat is likely to affect foetal brain development, whether the effects are the same for male and female offspring is unclear. As a result, we randomly assigned female, Sprague-Dawley rats to either a control, or high-fat diet (HFD; 45% of calories from saturated fat) for 10 weeks. A range of biometrics were collected, and hippocampal function was assessed at both the tissue level (by measuring synaptic plasticity) and at the behavioural level (using the Morris water maze; MWM).

Distinct dendritic morphology across the blades of the rodent dentate gyrus.

The dentate gyrus (DG) is a hippocampal region that has long been characterized as a critical mediator of enduring memory formation and retrieval. As such, there is a wealth of studies investigating this area. Most of these studies have either treated the DG as a homogeneous structure, or examined differences in neurons along the septal-temporal axis.

Dissociation of spatial representations within hippocampal region CA3.

Classic models of the hippocampus uniformly ascribe pattern completion to CA3, but recent data suggest CA3c (enclosed by the dentate gyrus) may act in a manner more consistent with the dentate and aid in pattern separation. The ideal test for functional distinction within CA3, however, is to compare the responses in these regions in the same animal in multiple contexts. To accomplish this, animals visited two contexts with varying degrees of similarity and the pattern of repeated Arc expression was examined across the pyramidal cell layer.