title: The canine sand maze: an appetitive spatial memory paradigm sensitive to age-related change in dogs.
abstract: Aged dogs exhibit a spectrum of cognitive abilities including a syndrome similar to Alzheimer's disease. A major impediment to research so far has been the lack of a quick and accurate test of visuospatial memory appropriate for community-based animals. We therefore report on the development and validation of the Canine Sand Maze. A 4.5-m-diameter circular pool was filled with a sand and powdered food reward mix to a depth of 10 cm. Dogs were given 4 habituation and 16 learning trials which alternated a food reward being half (control trials) or fully-buried (acquisition trials) in a fixed location. After a 90-min break, a probe trial was conducted. Cognitively normal, aged (> 8 years, n  =  11) and young (1-4 years, n  =  11), breed-matched dogs were compared. After correction for differences in control trials, average probe times were 2.97 and 10.81 s for young and aged dogs, respectively. In the probe trial, both groups spent significantly more time in the target quadrant but there was a trend for young dogs to cross a 1 m(2) annulus zone around the buried reward more frequently (2.6 times) than aged dogs (1.5 times). Test-retest reliability in a subset of young dogs (n  =  5) was high. On the basis of these findings, the Canine Sand Maze is presented as a quick, sensitive and nonaversive tool for assessing spatial learning and reference memory in dogs.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, Australia. hsal8835@uni.sydney.edu.au
authors.forename: Hannah E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Salvin
authors.forename: Paul D
authors.initials: PD
authors.lastname: McGreevy
authors.forename: Perminder S
authors.initials: PS
authors.lastname: Sachdev
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Valenzuela
mesh_terms: D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000523:psychology / Q000662:veterinary; D000818:Animals; D001070:Appetitive Behavior; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D004283:Dog Diseases / Q000523:psychology; D004285:Dogs / Q000523:psychology*; D018782:Maze Learning; D011939:Mental Recall; D009949:Orientation; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception