Search PubMed⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search PubMed

Results for “spatial memory”

Search indexed PubMed citations on genomics, clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health. Explore titles, authors and supplied subject terms, then open the PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 253 records · Page 14Linked to original sources
PubMed1986

Preserved spatial memory in old rats survives 10 months without training.

Aged rats with extensive prior training on the radial maze retain the capacity for accurate spatial working memory (WM) for at least 3 months without practice. To investigate the temporal limits of this influence of prior experience we compared the reacquisition of spatial WM by a group of experienced 21.5-month-old rats to the original acquisition by naive 3-month-old rats. The aged rats had received 225 radial maze tests between 3 and 11 months of age. Despite 10 months without practice the old rats rapidly reacquired critical performance. Their reacquisition was markedly superior to original learning by the young rats, even when delays as long as 5 h were imposed between the rats' fourth and fifth choices during the daily tests in the eight-arm maze. Additional tests showed that neither young nor old rats employed a response strategy to maintain accurate spatial WM performance. Experience clearly confers long-lived protection against the otherwise deleterious effects of aging on spatial WM, but the mechanism by which this influence arises is unknown.

Aging↗
PubMed1989

Loss of NGF receptor immunoreactivity in basal forebrain neurons of aged rats: correlation with spatial memory impairment.

Nerve growth factor (NGF) has recently been implicated as a trophic agent in the survival and maintenance of basal forebrain cholinergic neurons. To test the hypothesis that NGF may play a role in the age-related decline of cerebral cholinergic function and loss of cognitive ability, we investigated the possible correlation between the loss of basal forebrain neurons that stain for NGF receptor, and impairment of spatial reference memory performance in aged rats. Our results suggest that NGF receptor-positive basal forebrain neurons undergo marked cell atrophy and loss of neuropil staining in aged rats exhibiting impaired spatial learning and memory performance. Conversely, numerous, densely immunoreactive perikarya and a profuse neuritic plexus within the basal forebrain nuclei was consistently observed in behaviorally intact rats. Overall, the mean number of NGF receptor-positive basal forebrain neurons both in the nucleus of the diagonal band and nucleus basalis correlated with retention of the spatial task (r = 0.84 and r = 0.67, respectively; P less than 0.01). Our results support the view that progressive failure of retrograde trophic support due to the age-related loss of NGF receptors may promote degenerative changes in basal forebrain cholinergic neurons, and contribute to deterioration of cognitive ability in senescence.

Aging↗
PubMed1995

Anatomical specificity and time-dependence of chlordiazepoxide-induced spatial memory impairments.

Injection of the benzodiazepine (BDZ) chlordiazepoxide (CDP) into the medial septum (MS) produced a dose-dependent retrograde working memory deficit in a delayed non-match-to-sample radial-arm maze task. CDP (30 nmol; 10 micrograms) decreased the number of correct choices and increased the number of errors without altering latency to make arm choices. The effects of CDP were site specific; injection into regions proximate to the MS, including the lateral septum, the anterior cingulate, and the nucleus basalis magnocellularis, did not affect any index of performance. The second experiment demonstrated that CDP impaired working memory only when rats were injected either 0 or 60 min, but not 15, 30, or 45 min, following training. The MS appears (a) to contribute to both early (encoding/ maintenance) and late (retrieval/utilization) phases of working memory and (b) to be a critical site of action for BDZ-induced deficits in spatial working memory.

Animals↗
PubMed1992

N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist MK-801 and spatial memory representation: working memory is impaired in an unfamiliar environment but not in a familiar environment.

Female Sprague-Dawley rats were injected with the noncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonist MK-801 or saline 30 min before daily testing in spatial working memory (WM) and reference memory (RM) procedures in an 8-arm radial maze. MK-801 impaired RM and WM acquisition but not performance when rats were trained to criterion before drug administration. Neither a 2-hr nor a 4-hr delay between the first and last 2 correct WM choices impaired long-term WM. MK-801 impaired WM performance in trained rats only when rats were tested in a new environment. Thus, 2 mechanisms may be required for relational memory: an NMDA-dependent mechanism for acquiring long-term spatial representations and an NMDA-insensitive mechanism for operating on these stored representations.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Both here and there: simultaneous expression of autonomous spatial memories in rats.

Foraging rats learned to avoid footshock that was present in a part of a circular arena that was either stable or rotating slowly in a lighted room. The rotation dissociated spatial information in the separate reference frames of the room and arena. After learning to avoid the shocked region in either condition, in the absence of shock, memory for this place was expressed by simultaneous avoidance of an area defined in the reference frame of the room as well as of an area defined in the reference frame of the rotating arena. Spatial memories in these distinct reference frames were acquired, retrieved, and extinguished autonomously.

Animals↗
PubMed1993

Spatial memory in alcohol-dependent subjects: using a push-button maze to test the principle of equiavailability.

The principle of equiavailability states that once the locations in a spatial array are learned, then all locations in the array are simultaneously available in memory (Levine, Jankovic, & Palij, 1982). To test the application of this principle, 21 nonamnesic, alcohol-dependent, male subjects and 20 demographic and ability-matched male control subjects were required to learn a series of push-button maze paths and to perform shortcut or retrace movements on the paths. The results for the control subjects conformed to the principle of equiavailability. In contrast, the alcohol-dependent subjects did not show equiavailability. This pattern of results is interpreted as evidence of a spatial memory deficit in the alcohol-dependent subjects.

Adult↗
PubMed1994

Spatial memory and N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonists APV and MK-801: memory impairments depend on familiarity with the environment, drug dose, and training duration.

Rats given N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists were tested in the radial maze in spatial working memory (WM) and reference memory (RM) tasks. Female rats given (+)-10,11-dihydro-5-methyl-5H-dibenzo [a,d] cycloheptene-5,10 imine (MK-801; 0.0625 mg/kg ip) before daily testing in an 8-arm WM task were impaired even after 70 days. Control rats learned quickly, were assigned to a group given MK-801 or saline, and were trained to avoid 4 of the 8 arms. MK-801 impaired this reversal learning but did not affect WM performance. Male rats were trained on an 8-arm WM task for 19 days and then given intracranial aminophosphonovaleric acid (APV; 33 mM), which impaired both WM and motor behavior. Male rats were trained for 65 days to enter 4 of 8 arms and then given intracranial APV (20 or 30 mM). WM and RM were normal in the familiar environment but were both impaired in an unfamiliar environment. Results suggest that the mnemonic effects of NMDA antagonists depend on environmental familiarity, dose, and training duration.

2-Amino-5-phosphonovalerate↗
PubMed1993

Behavioral parameters of the spatial memory correlate with the potentiation of the population spike, but not with the population excitatory postsynaptic potential, of the CA1 region in rat hippocampal slices.

Rats were tested for spatial performance in a water maze with further in vitro investigation of short-term and long-term potentiation (STP and LTP) in the CA1 region of the hippocampus. Recordings of the population spike in stratum pyramidale and population excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) in stratum radiatum were made with extracellular electrodes after stimulation of the radiatum and oriens inputs in the region. It was found that for both inputs, STP and LTP of the population spike amplitude correlated with behavioral parameters of memory: latency of reaching the hidden platform (escape latency) and percent of time which the animal spent inside the quadrant with the platform. Potentiation of the initial slope of EPSP, in contrast, did not correlate with these parameters. These data support the hypothesis that hippocampal LTP may underlie spatial performance and show that potentiation of the output characteristic of the hippocampus (population spike), but not of the EPSP, is a physiological correlate for spatial memory.

Action Potentials↗
PubMed1988

The retrieval of visuo-spatial memories by honeybees.

In order to explore how honeybees manage to retrieve the right landmark-memory in the right place, we trained bees along a short foraging route which consisted of two identical huts 33 m apart. Bees entered each hut to collect a drop of sucrose on the floor. The location of the drop was defined by the same arrangement of four blue and yellow cylindrical landmarks. However, in one hut the drop was between two yellow cylinders and in two other it was to the east of the blue cylinders. On tests with the sucrose missing, bees tended to search in the appropriate area in each hut (Fig. 1), thus showing that they used cues other than the sight of the local landmarks to select the appropriate memory. In a second experiment, the position of the sucrose was specified by yellow cylinders in one hut and by blue triangles in the other. When the arrays were swapped between huts, bees searched in the position specified by the array they encountered (Fig. 2). Thus, memories can be triggered by visual features of local landmarks. Bees were also trained outside to collect food from two platforms 40 m apart. The location of sucrose on one platform was defined by yellow cylinders, and on the other it was defined by blue triangles. When these arrays were exchanged between platforms, bees searched on each platform as though the landmarks had not been swapped. It seems that the more distant surroundings, which fill most of the visual field, may be more potent than the local landmarks in deciding which memory should be retrieved.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Characteristics of basolateral amygdala neuronal firing on a spatial memory task involving differential reward.

Previous research has shown that spatial, movement, and reward information is integrated within the ventral striatum (VS). The present study examined the possible contribution of the basolateral nuclei of the amygdala (BLA) to this interaction by examining behavioral correlates of BLA neurons while rats performed multiple memory trials on an 8-arm radial maze. Alternate arms consistently held 1 of 2 different amounts of reward. Recorded cells were correlated with motion, auditory input, space, and reward acquisition. Reward-related units were found that anticipated reward encounter, that responded during reward consumption, and that differentiated between high and low reward magnitude. This is consistent with the hypothesis that BLA neurons may provide the VS with reward-related information that could then be integrated with spatial information to ultimately affect goal-directed behavior.

Amygdala↗
PubMed1991

Previous experience facilitates preservation of spatial memory in the senescent rat.

In an attempt to evaluate whether previous training antagonizes age-related memory deficits, aged rats with previous training experience were compared with aged and young naive rats in the Morris water maze test. The findings of our study indicate that experience seems to facilitate the preservation of the spatial reference memory for 12 months in the aged rat, whereas senescent naive animals showed the usual age-related memory deficits. However, experience seems task-specific since the same aged rats fail to acquire a new different task.

Aging↗
PubMed1990

In situ binding of bouton zinc reversibly disrupts performance on a spatial memory task.

Neurons with zinc in the presynaptic vesicles innervate much of the telencephalon, but the functional significance of the vesicular zinc has never been established. The present work shows that reversible binding of zinc by drug infusion into the hippocampus produces a time-locked and selective disruption of hippocampal-dependent spatial-working memory. A role for vesicular zinc in neurotransmission or neuromodulation is implied.

Animals↗
PubMed1981

[A test for the evaluation of visuo-spatial memory].

Review of available literature reveals the lack of reports on memory impairment in relation to visuo-spatial and tridimensional dominance. Considering the absence of specific methods for assaying evaluations, the intention of our study was to devise a systematic testing procedure in order to explore the patterns referrable to this aspect.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

Age-related differences in spatial memory: effects of structural and organizational context.

The authors examined effects of structural and organizational spatial context on younger and older adults' memory for an arrangement of dollhouse furniture pieces. For half of the participants, landmark objects (Experiment 1) and a floor plan beneath the array (Experiment 2) served as structural context during study and replacement. Organizational context was varied by grouping items randomly or as 6 rooms in a prototypical house. Two study and replacement trials were given. In Experiment 1, landmark structural cues improved younger adults' performance, whereas both age groups benefited from the floor plan in Experiment 2. In both experiments, positive effects of organizational context and trial occurred. Higher order interactions further revealed that structural and organizational context effects varied in size across trials, suggesting that both age groups used spatial contextual cues more effectively with practice. Implications of these results for current views on cognitive compensation in adulthood are discussed.

Adult↗