Characterization of age-related differences in the Multi-Variate Maze

MARTÍNEZ, MARÍA CECILIA

Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires

Congreso; XXXVI Congreso Anual Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias; 2021

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencias (SAN)

The multi-variate maze (MVM) is a test arena designed to evaluate explorative strategies. Animals can freely go through the whole arena which has different areas, some more related to risk-taking choices and others to the look for shelter. Several studies have shown that adolescent rats exhibit more risk-taking behaviors in contrast to adults. Moreover, in adolescents, it has been found that there are two opposite behavioral types: explorers -that have a high level of activity- and shelter seekers - that prefer to remain in sheltered areas of the maze-. The aim of this project is to study how subjects of different ages (adolescent, adults and older adults) behave in the MVM and to evaluate changes in their exploratory behavior in a second exposure to the MVM. Preliminary results shown here were obtained from training female and male Long Evans rats in the MVM. Besides, animals were also trained in two other behavioral paradigms (Open field and Y-maze) and their memory was tested 24 h after.