Mongillo Paolo, Araujo Joseph A, Pitteri Elisa, Carnier Paolo, Adamelli Serena, Regolin Lucia, Marinelli Lieta
Dipartimento di Biomedicina Comparata e Alimentazione, Università degli Studi di Padova, Padua, Italy,
Age (Dordr). 2013 Dec;35(6):2273-82. doi: 10.1007/s11357-013-9524-0. Epub 2013 Mar 26.
Aged dogs spontaneously develop progressive decline in both cognitive and behavioral function, in addition to neuropathological changes, that collectively parallel several aspects of human aging and Alzheimer's disease progression and likely contribute to the development of canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome. In the current study, ethologically relevant spatial learning, retention, and reversal learning tasks were conducted, with the goal of expanding canine neuropsychological testing to pet dogs. Initially, dogs (N = 44, aged 7.8 ± 2.8 years, mean ± SD) had to learn which of two alternative routes successfully led out of a T-maze. Two weeks later, long-term memory retention was assessed, immediately followed by a reversal learning task in which the previously correct route out of the maze was reversed compared with the initial learning and memory retention tasks. No effects of age were evident on the learning or retention tasks. However, older (≥ 8 years) dogs were significantly impaired on the reversal learning task compared with younger ones (< 8 years). Moreover, trial response latency was significantly increased in aged dogs across both the initial and reversal learning tasks but not on the retention task, which suggests that processing speed was impaired by increasing age during the acquisition of novel spatial information but not during performance of previously learned responses. Overall, the current study provides a framework for assessing cognitive function in pet dogs, which should improve understanding of the effects of aging on cognition in the dog population.
老年犬会自发地出现认知和行为功能的渐进性衰退，以及神经病理学变化，这些变化总体上与人类衰老和阿尔茨海默病进展的几个方面相似，并可能导致犬类认知功能障碍综合征的发展。在当前的研究中，进行了与行为学相关的空间学习、记忆保持和逆向学习任务，目的是将犬类神经心理学测试扩展到宠物犬。最初，犬（N = 44，年龄7.8 ± 2.8岁，平均值 ± 标准差）必须学习两条替代路线中的哪一条能成功走出T型迷宫。两周后，评估长期记忆保持情况，随后立即进行逆向学习任务，与最初的学习和记忆保持任务相比，迷宫中先前正确的路线被颠倒。年龄对学习或记忆保持任务没有明显影响。然而，与年轻犬（< 8岁）相比，老年犬（≥ 8岁）在逆向学习任务上明显受损。此外，在最初和逆向学习任务中，老年犬的试验反应潜伏期显著增加，但在记忆保持任务中没有，这表明在获取新的空间信息过程中，处理速度因年龄增长而受损，但在执行先前学习的反应时不受影响。总体而言，当前的研究为评估宠物犬的认知功能提供了一个框架，这应该有助于提高对衰老对犬类群体认知影响的理解。
