title: Impairment of intradimensional shift in an attentional set-shifting task in rats with chronic bilateral common carotid artery occlusion.
abstract: Studies of rats with chronic bilateral common carotid artery occlusion (BCCAo), an animal model for vascular dementia (VaD), have reported hippocampus-dependent memory impairment and associated neuropathologies. Patients with VaD also experience attentional shifting dysfunction. However, animal models of VaD have not been used to study attentional function. Therefore, the present study examined attentional function in rats with BCCAo, using attentional set-shifting task (ASST) that required rats to choose a food-baited pot from 2 possible pots. ASST included 6 consecutive sessions including simple discrimination, compound discrimination, intradimensional shifting, extradimensional shifting, and reversals. The BCCAo rats were significantly slower at learning the intradimensional set-shifting task compared to control rats. Previous studies have demonstrated that the cingulate cortex and medial prefrontal cortex are critical to intradimensional and extradimensional set-shifting, respectively. Additionally, inflammatory responses and neuronal dysfunction were observed in rats with chronic BCCAo. In addition, OX-6 positive microglia significantly increased in the forceps minor white matter of BCCAo rats, and glutamate decarboxylase signals co-localized with NeuN were reduced in the anterior cingulate cortex of BCCAo rats, compared to control rats. Impaired neuronal and GABAergic neuronal integrity in the anterior cingulate cortex, damage to white matter, and attentional impairments observed in BCCAo rats suggest dysfunction of brain structures that are associated with attentional impairments observed in patients with VaD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Konkuk University, Seoul 143-701, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Dong-Hee
authors.initials: DH
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Konkuk University, Seoul 143-701, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Bo-Ryoung
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Choi
authors.affiliation: Herbal Medicine Research Division, Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine, Daejeon 305-811, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Won Kyung
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Jeon
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Konkuk University, Seoul 143-701, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: jshan06@konkuk.ac.kr.
authors.forename: Jung-Soo
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Han
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D002340:Carotid Artery Diseases / Q000150:complications*; D017536:Carotid Artery, Common / Q000473:pathology*; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D059330:GABAergic Neurons / Q000473:pathology*; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
keywords: Attention; Bilateral common carotid artery occlusion; Cingulate cortex; Vascular dementia; Wisconsin card sorting test