title: Behavioral study of calorie-restricted rats from early old age.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the effect of Calorie Restriction (CR) on learning and memory ability of early aged rats.
  
  
  METHODS
  18-month rats were subjected to restricted intake by 60% comparing with that of rats fed ad libitum (AL) for 6 months. We compared the overall health status, including survival rate and locomotor activity by open-field test. We examined the spatial cognition ability of the rats by Morris Water Maze.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Our results showed that CR rats had higher survival rate and spontaneous locomotor activity compared with AL rats. CR rats slowed the inability of spatial learning and reference memory.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These findings demonstrated that CR in early old rats delayed the declination of spatial cognition.
authors.affiliation: Department of forensic medicine, Laboratory of cell senescence, Medical College of Shantou University, Guangdong, CO 515031, China. yqgeng@126.com
authors.forename: Y Q
authors.initials: YQ
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.forename: J T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Guan
authors.forename: M Y
authors.initials: MY
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: X H
authors.initials: XH
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Y C
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Fu
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging; D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal; D001835:Body Weight; D031204:Caloric Restriction; D003071:Cognition; D002149:Energy Intake; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D008124:Locomotion; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning; D008568:Memory; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D013997:Time Factors