Cognitive functioning is vital for enabling animals of all taxa to optimise their chances of survival and reproductive success. Learning and memory in particular are drivers of many evolutionary processes. In this study, we examine how developmental plasticity can affect cognitive ability by exploring the role the early social environment has on problem solving ability and learning of female bl...

Cholinergic brain activity plays a significant role in memory. Scopolamine a muscarinic cholinergic antagonist is known to induce impairment in Morris water maze performance, the task which is mainly dependent on the hippocampus. It is suggested that hippocampal ERK and Akt activation play roles in synaptic plasticity and some types of learning and memory. Agmatine, a polyamine derived from l-a...

PURPOSE Seizures in the developing brain cause less macroscopic structural damage than do seizures in adulthood, but accumulating evidence shows that seizures early in life can be associated with persistent behavioral and cognitive impairments. We previously showed that long-term spatial memory in the eight-arm radial-arm maze was impaired in rats that experienced a single episode of kainic aci...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Environmental stimulation consistently increases dentate neurogenesis in the adult brain and improves spatial learning. We tested the hypothesis whether specific rehabilitative training of an impaired forelimb influences these processes after focal cortical infarcts. METHODS Focal cortical infarcts were induced in the forelimb sensorimotor cortex using the photothrombos...

Epidemiological studies suggest that individuals with greater education or more cognitively demanding occupations have diminished risk of developing dementia. We wanted to test whether this effect could be recapitulated in rodents using environmental enrichment, a paradigm well documented to attenuate behavioral deficits induced by various pathological insults. Here, we demonstrate that learnin...

Given evidence that mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) activation is part of the nongenomic actions of thyroid hormones, we investigated the possible consequences of hyperthyroidism for the cognitive functioning of adult rats. Young adult rats were treated with L-thyroxine or saline. Twenty rats in each group were exposed to Morris water maze testing, measuring their performance in a hidde...

In order to the neuroprotective effect of Lycium chinense fruit (LCF), the present study examined the effects of Lycium chinense fruit on learning and memory in Morris water maze task and the choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) of rats with trimethyltin (TMT)-induced neuronal and cognitive impairments. The rats were randomly divided into the following grou...

Lurcher mutant mice represent a model of olivocerebellar degeneration. They suffer from cerebellar ataxia and deterioration of cognitive functions. The aim of the work was to study the effect of repetitive enforced motor training on spatial learning ability and motor coordination in adult Lurcher mutant mice of the C57BI strain. Experimental mice were trained repetitively on a rotarod. Control ...

Objective(s): There is controversial evidence about the effect of methamphetamine (METH) on spatial memory. We tested the time- dependent effects of METH on spatial short-term (working) and long-term (reference) memory in METH –sensitized and withdrawn rats in the Morris water maze. Materials and Methods: Rats were sensitized to METH (2 mg/kg, daily/5 days, SC). Rats were trained in water maze ...

Objective(s): Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a widespread metabolic disorder worldwide. Clinical physicians have found diabetic patients have mild to middle cognitive dysfunction and an alteration of brain monoaminergic function. This study explored the change in various patterns of behavioral models and brain monoamine function under streptozotocin (STZ)-induced type 1 diabetes.Materials and Method...