title: Deficits of psychomotor and mnesic functions across aging in mouse lemur primates.
abstract: Owing to a similar cerebral neuro-anatomy, non-human primates are viewed as the most valid models for understanding cognitive deficits. This study evaluated psychomotor and mnesic functions of 41 young to old mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus). Psychomotor capacities and anxiety-related behaviors decreased abruptly from middle to late adulthood. However, mnesic functions were not affected in the same way with increasing age. While results of the spontaneous alternation task point to a progressive and widespread age-related decline of spatial working memory, both spatial reference and novel object recognition (NOR) memory tasks did not reveal any tendency due to large inter-individual variability in the middle-aged and old animals. Indeed, some of the aged animals performed as well as younger ones, whereas some others had bad performances in the Barnes maze and in the object recognition test. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed that declarative-like memory was strongly impaired only in 7 out of 25 middle-aged/old animals. These results suggest that this analysis allows to distinguish elder populations of good and bad performers in this non-human primate model and to closely compare this to human aging.
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle France Brunoy, France.
authors.forename: Solène
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Languille
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle France Brunoy, France.
authors.forename: Agatha
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Liévin-Bazin
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle France Brunoy, France ; Laboratoire de Psychopathologie et de Neuropsychologie, EA 2027, Université Paris 8 St-Denis, France.
authors.forename: Jean-Luc
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Picq
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherches Servier Croissy-sur-Seine, France.
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Louis
authors.affiliation: Eli Lilly, Erl Wood Manor Surrey, UK.
authors.forename: Sophie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dix
authors.affiliation: INCI UPR3212 CNRS et Innovative Health Diagnostics Strasbourg, France.
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: De Barry
authors.affiliation: Centre de Pharmacologie Clinique et d'Evaluations Thérapeutiques-CIC, Timone CNRS-INT-Aix Marseille Université Marseille, France.
authors.forename: Olivier
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Blin
authors.affiliation: GlaxoSmithKline, R&D China U.K. Group Stevenage Stevenage, UK.
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Richardson
authors.affiliation: Département de Pharmacologie Médicale, EA 1046, Université Lille Nord de France, UDSL, Faculté de Médecine CHU, Lille, France.
authors.forename: Régis
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bordet
authors.affiliation: Institut de Recherches Servier Croissy-sur-Seine, France.
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schenker
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle France Brunoy, France.
authors.forename: Fathia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Djelti
authors.affiliation: UMR 7179, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle France Brunoy, France.
authors.forename: Fabienne
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Aujard
keywords: anxiety; psychomotor; recognition memory; spatial memory; working memory