title: The effects of age on eyeblink conditioning in the freely moving Fischer-344 rat.
abstract: The effects of age were assessed on the ability of male Fischer-344 rats to acquire a classically conditioned eyeblink using the "delay" paradigm. Using a 350 ms white noise conditioning stimulus and a 100 ms coterminating periorbital shock (2 mA, 60 Hz, AC) we have demonstrated that these rats exhibit deficits as early as middle age. Middle-aged and senescent rats (18 and 30 months) exhibited significantly fewer conditioned responses than young rats (3 and 12 months). Since all of the rats responded to a test noise, and there were no differences in threshold to evoke a blink, this result is likely to be due to an associative deficit. Thus, our results indicate that eyeblink conditioning in the freely moving rat is a useful model system for behavioral and neurobiological analyses of the effects of age on associative learning and memory.
authors.affiliation: Neurosciences Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90089-2520.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: R F
authors.initials: RF
authors.lastname: Thompson
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D001767:Blinking / Q000502:physiology*; D003214:Conditioning, Classical / Q000502:physiology*; D004576:Electromyography; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344