Hegab Ibrahim M, Tan Yuchen, Wang Chan, Yao Baohui, Wang Haifang, Ji Weihong, Su Junhu
College of Grassland Science, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem (Ministry of Education), Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China; Gansu Agricultural University-Massey University Research Centre for Grassland Biodiversity, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China; Department of Hygiene, Zoonoses and Animal Behavior and Management, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Suez Canal University, Ismailia 41522, Egypt.
College of Grassland Science, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem (Ministry of Education), Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China; Gansu Agricultural University-Massey University Research Centre for Grassland Biodiversity, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China.
Behav Processes. 2018 Jan;146:34-41. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2017.11.007. Epub 2017 Nov 10.
Recognition memory is important for the survival and fitness of subterranean rodents due to the barren underground conditions that require avoiding the burden of higher energy costs or possible conflict with conspecifics. Our study aims to examine the object and object/place recognition memories in plateau zokors (Eospalax baileyi) and test whether their underground life exerts sex-specific differences in memory functions using Novel Object Recognition (NOR) and Object-in-Place (OiP) paradigms. Animals were tested in the NOR with short (10min) and long-term (24h) inter-trial intervals (ITI) and in the OiP for a 30-min ITI between the familiarization and testing sessions. Plateau zokors showed a strong preference for novel objects manifested by a longer exploration time for the novel object after 10min ITI but failed to remember the familiar object when tested after 24h, suggesting a lack of long-term memory. In the OiP test, zokors effectively formed an association between the objects and the place where they were formerly encountered, resulting in a higher duration of exploration to the switched objects. However, both sexes showed equivalent results in exploration time during the NOR and OiP tests, which eliminates the possibility of discovering sex-specific variations in memory performance. Taken together, our study illustrates robust novelty preference and an effective short-term recognition memory without marked sex-specific differences, which might elucidate the dynamics of recognition memory formation and retrieval in plateau zokors.
由于地下环境贫瘠，需要避免更高的能量消耗负担或与同种个体发生冲突，识别记忆对地下啮齿动物的生存和适应性很重要。我们的研究旨在检查高原鼢鼠（甘肃鼢鼠）的物体识别和物体/地点识别记忆，并使用新颖物体识别（NOR）和物体在位（OiP）范式测试它们的地下生活是否在记忆功能上产生性别特异性差异。动物在NOR中分别以短（10分钟）和长（24小时）的试验间隔（ITI）进行测试，在OiP中，在熟悉和测试环节之间有30分钟的ITI。高原鼢鼠对新颖物体表现出强烈偏好，在10分钟ITI后对新颖物体的探索时间更长，但在24小时后测试时未能记住熟悉的物体，这表明缺乏长期记忆。在OiP测试中，鼢鼠有效地在物体和它们之前遇到的地点之间形成了关联，导致对切换物体的探索时间更长。然而，在NOR和OiP测试中，两性在探索时间上的结果相当，这排除了发现记忆表现中性别特异性差异的可能性。综上所述，我们的研究表明了强烈的新颖性偏好和有效的短期识别记忆，且没有明显的性别特异性差异，这可能阐明了高原鼢鼠识别记忆形成和检索的动态过程。
