AI Article Synopsis
- Understanding cognitive health in older adults involves studying the neurobiology of age-related decline and how some individuals maintain cognitive abilities.
- Aged humans and rodents tend to shift their learning strategies toward stimulus-response learning, suggesting an interaction between the caudate nucleus/dorsal striatum (DS) and hippocampus (HPC).
- The recent study found that inactivating the DS did not improve visuospatial paired associate learning in aged rats, indicating that elevated DS activity may not directly cause cognitive decline in this specific type of memory task.
Article Abstract
Improving cognitive health for older adults requires understanding the neurobiology of age-related cognitive decline and the mechanisms underlying preserved cognition in old age. During spatial learning tasks, aged humans and rodents shift navigation preferences in favor of a stimulus-response learning strategy. This has been hypothesized to result from competitive interactions of the caudate nucleus/dorsal striatum (DS) memory system with the hippocampus (HPC)-dependent spatial/allocentric memory system. In support of this hypothesis, a recent study reported that inactivation of the DS in aged rodents rescued HPC-dependent spatial learning on a T-maze (Gardner, Gold, & Korol, 2020). Currently, it is unclear whether a shift from HPC-dependent to DS-dependent behavior also contributes to age-related cognitive decline outside of spatial learning and memory. To test the hypothesis that inactivation of the DS can restore age-related cognitive function outside of spatial behavior, the present study bilaterally inactivated the DS of young ( = 8) and aged ( = 7) rats during visuospatial paired associates learning (PAL). This study found that inactivation of the DS did not alter PAL performance in young or aged rats, but did alter a positive control, DS-dependent spatial navigation task. This observation suggests that elevated DS activity does not play a role in the decline of HPC-dependent PAL performance in aged male rats. Given the persistent tendencies of aged rodents toward DS-dependent learning, it will be worthwhile to explore further the coordination dynamics between the HPC and DS that may contribute to age-related cognitive decline. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).
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| http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10721732 | PMC |
| http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bne0000561 | DOI Listing |
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