Age-related deficits in a forebrain-dependent task, trace-eyeblink conditioning

• Published in: Neurobiology of aging Vol. 32; no. 10; pp. 1915 - 1922
• Main Authors: Galvez, Roberto, Cua, Sabrina, Disterhoft, John F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Elsevier Inc 01.10.2011; Elsevier
• Subjects: Acoustic Stimulation - methods; Aging; Aging - physiology; Analysis of Variance; Animals; Barrel cortex; Biological and medical sciences; Conditioning, Classical - physiology; Conditioning, Eyelid - physiology; Development. Senescence. Regeneration. Transplantation; Electron Transport Complex IV - metabolism; Electroshock; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Hippocampus; Internal Medicine; Mice; Mice, Inbred C57BL; Neurology; Neuronal Plasticity - physiology; PNBSF; Prosencephalon - physiopathology; Rabbits; Reaction Time - physiology; Somatosensory; Somesthesis and somesthetic pathways (proprioception, exteroception, nociception); interoception; electrolocation. Sensory receptors; Vertebrates: nervous system and sense organs; Vibrissae - innervation; Whisker; Somatosensory; Aging; Barrel cortex; PNBSF; Whisker; Hippocampus; Senescence; Central nervous system; Encephalon; Prosencephalon; Somatosensory cortex; Somesthetic pathway; Conditioning; Age
• ISSN: 0197-4580; 1558-1497; 1558-1497
• DOI: 10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2009.11.014

Trace-eyeblink conditioning is a forebrain-dependent learning paradigm that has assisted in our understanding of age-related hippocampal neuronal plasticity; however, the hippocampus is not believed to be the permanent site for most long-term-memory storage. Studies in adult subjects have suggested the neocortex as one such site. Whisker plucking studies have further suggested that the ability for plasticity in the neocortex declines with age. Mice were trained in trace- and delay-eyeblink conditioning with whisker or auditory stimulation as the conditioned stimulus to examine possible age-related behavioral and neocortical abnormalities. Whisker stimulation was determined to be a more effective stimulus for examining age-related behavioral abnormalities in C57 mice. Additionally, neocortical barrel expansion, observed in trace conditioned adult mice and rabbits, does not occur in mice conditioned on a delay paradigm or in old mice unable to learn the whisker trace association. Abnormalities in neocortical memory storage in the elderly could contribute to normal age-dependent declines in associative learning abilities.