Memory and learning decline are related with temporal changes of cognitive factors in aged rats

ALTAMIRANO, FERNANDO GABRIEL; PONCE, IVANA TAMARA; CORIA LUCERO, CINTIA; CASTRO PASCUAL, IVANNA CARLA; FERRAMOLA, MARIANA LUCILA; DELGADO, SILVIA MARCELA; ANZULOVICH, ANA CECILIA; LACOSTE, MARÍA GABRIELA

San Luis

Congreso; XXXVII Reunión Científica Anual de la Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2019

Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo

Aging brain undergoes several changes leading to a decline in cognitive functions. Bdnf and its receptor TrkB, are expressed in different brain regions, including hippocampus, and regulate a wide range of functions such as synaptic plasticity, long-term potentiation and neurogenesis, which are fundamental for memory and learning. Interestingly, previous results from our laboratory showed a loss of the circadian variation in the expression of Bdnf and TrkB mRNA in the hippocampus of older rats.The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of aging on cognitive processes and compare it with the temporal expression of Bdnf and TrkB in the rat hippocampus. Holtzman male rats were separated into two experimental groups: young adult (3- months old) and old (22- months old) rats. Cognitive performance was assessed by the Barnes maze (BM) test for spatial learning and memory and by the Novel Object Recognition (NOR) test for contextual learning. In the BM test, older rats showed a significant lower exploratory frequency of the target region (p