Memory decline in aged rats: a neuropsychological interpretation.
Groups of old and young rats were administered a delayed alternation task in which memory for specific events was assessed over intervals ranging between 0 and 80 s. There was no age difference in performance at relatively short intervals, but old rats showed significant memory loss at longer intervals. The pattern of behavior exhibited by old rats was very similar to that seen in young rats with selective hippocampal lesions, tested in a previous experiment under identical conditions. The present results were interpreted as reflecting an integrative deficit in old animals related to the process of establishing and/or storing associations between temporally-separated events.
D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D051381:Rats