Episodic-Like Memory in Rats: Is It Based on When or How Long Ago?

• Published in: Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 320; no. 5872; pp. 113 - 115
• Main Authors: Roberts, William A, Feeney, Miranda C, MacPherson, Krista, Petter, Mark, McMillan, Neil, Musolino, Evanya
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, DC American Association for the Advancement of Science 04.04.2008; The American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Subjects: Animal memory; Animals; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Cues; Experimentation; Experiments; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; HLA antigens; Humans; Male; Maze Learning; Mazes; Memory; Miscellaneous; Psychology; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Random Allocation; Rats; Rats, Long-Evans; Religious behavior; Rodents; Time Factors; Human; Vertebrata; Travel time; Mammalia; Rat; Animal; Rodentia; Cognition; Experimental study; Episodic memory
• ISSN: 0036-8075; 1095-9203
• DOI: 10.1126/science.1152709

Recent experiments with rats suggest that they show episodic-like or what-where-when memory for a preferred food found on a radial maze. Although memory for when a salient event occurred suggests that rats can mentally travel in time to a moment in the past, an alternative possibility is that they remember how long ago the food was found. Three groups of rats were tested for memory of previously encountered food. The different groups could use only the cues of when, how long ago, or when + how long ago. Only the cue of how long ago food was encountered was used successfully. These results suggest that episodic-like memory in rats is qualitatively different from human episodic memory.