Spontaneous Object Exploration in a Recessive Gene Knockout Model of Parkinson's Disease: Development and Progression of Object Recognition Memory Deficits in Male Rats.

Cognitive impairments appear at or before motor signs in about one third of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) and have a cumulative prevalence of roughly 80% overall. These deficits exact an unrelenting toll on patients' quality and activities of daily life due in part to a lack of available treatments to ameliorate them. This study used three well-validated novel object recognition-based paradigms to explore the suitability of rats with knockout of the PTEN-induced putative kinase1 gene () for investigating factors that induce cognitive decline in PD and for testing new ways to mitigate them.