A detailed analysis of the early context extinction deficits seen in APPswe/PS1dE9 female mice and their relevance to preclinical Alzheimer's disease.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an incurable age-related neurodegenerative condition, characterised by progressive decline in cognitive and physical functions, and extensive brain damage. Identifying cognitive deficits that accompany early AD is critical, as the accompanying synaptic changes can be effectively targeted by current treatments - at present AD is typically not diagnosed until brain pathology is established, and treatment relatively ineffective. We therefore examined early cognitive changes in 4-month-old mice over-expressing 2 genes responsible for AD (APPswe/PS1d9 mouse line).

Some appetitive procedures for examining associative learning in the mouse: Implications for psychopathology.

There are few demonstrations of basic associative learning phenomena using appetitive procedures in mice. This article describes procedures for obtaining four associative learning phenomena in mice, using an appetitive conditioning procedure in which the reinforcer was delivery of a sucrose pellet, and the conditioned response head entry into the food tray. Experiment 1 demonstrated latent inhibition in a within-subjects procedure.