Early Spatial Memory Impairment in a Double Transgenic Model of Alzheimer's Disease TgF-344 AD.

Before the course of Alzheimer's disease fully manifests itself and largely impairs a patient's cognitive abilities, its progression has already lasted for a considerable time without being noticed. In this project, we mapped the development of spatial orientation impairment in an active place avoidance task-a highly sensitive test for mild hippocampal damage. We tested vision, anxiety and spatial orientation performance at four age levels of 4, 6, 9, and 12 months across male and female TgF-344 AD rats carrying human genes for presenilin-1 and amyloid precursor protein.