title: Glucose treatment attenuates spatial learning and memory deficits of aged rats on tests of hippocampal function.
abstract: Groups of old and young rats were administered three tests of spatial learning and memory that are known to be sensitive to hippocampal dysfunction: the radial arm maze (RAM), spatial non-matching-to-sample (SNMTS), and a spatial vs. local cue-preference task. Old rats performed worse than young rats on the RAM and SNMTS tasks; on the cue-preference task, young rats were biased to use spatial cues, whereas old rats exhibited strong preferences for distinct, local cues. Peripheral injections of glucose (100 mg/kg) improved performance by old rats on the RAM and SNMTS, which correlated with measures of glucose metabolism. Glucose treatment did not affect old rats performance on the cue-preference task. There was evidence that glucose-treatment improved performance of young rats in the RAM test, but not the other tests. The results extend the range of tasks on which glucose-induced cognitive enhancement has been demonstrated in aged rats, and provides further evidence that memory loss resulting from hippocampal dysfunction is especially amenable to glucose treatment.
authors.affiliation: Rotman Research Institute, Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. winocur@psych.utoronto.ca
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Winocur
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gagnon
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D000818:Animals; D001786:Blood Glucose / Q000378:metabolism; D003463:Cues; D005947:Glucose / Q000494:pharmacology*; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000187:drug effects*; D008568:Memory / Q000187:drug effects*; D051381:Rats
chemical_list: D001786:Blood Glucose; D005947:Glucose