Institut für Biochemie und Zellbiologie, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Magdeburg, Germany.
Nat Protoc. 2011 Jul 14;6(8):1152-62. doi: 10.1038/nprot.2011.353.
Testing declarative memory in laboratory rodents can provide insights into the fundamental mechanisms underlying this type of learning and memory processing, and these insights are likely to be applicable to humans. Here we provide a detailed description of the social discrimination procedure used to investigate recognition memory in rats and mice, as established during the last 20 years in our laboratory. The test is based on the use of olfactory signals for social communication in rodents; this involves a direct encounter between conspecifics, during which the investigatory behavior of the experimental subject serves as an index for learning and memory performance. The procedure is inexpensive, fast and very reliable, but it requires well-trained human observers. We include recent modifications to the procedure that allow memory extinction to be investigated by retroactive and proactive interference, and that enable the dissociated analysis of the central nervous processing of the volatile fraction of an individual's olfactory signature. Depending on the memory retention interval under study (short-term memory, intermediate-term memory, long-term memory or long-lasting memory), the protocol takes ~10 min or up to several days to complete.
在实验室啮齿动物中测试陈述性记忆可以深入了解这种类型的学习和记忆处理的基本机制，这些见解可能适用于人类。在这里，我们提供了一种详细描述，用于研究我们实验室过去 20 年来建立的大鼠和小鼠识别记忆的社交辨别程序。该测试基于啮齿动物中用于社交交流的嗅觉信号；这涉及同种动物之间的直接接触，在此期间，实验对象的探究行为是学习和记忆表现的指标。该程序价格低廉、快速且非常可靠，但需要经过良好训练的人类观察者。我们包括了对程序的最新修改，这些修改允许通过逆行和前摄干扰来研究记忆消退，并能够对个体嗅觉特征挥发部分的中枢神经处理进行分离分析。根据研究的记忆保留间隔（短期记忆、中期记忆、长期记忆或长期记忆），该方案完成需要 10 分钟或数天的时间。
