Van der Jeugd Ann, D'Hooge Rudi
Laboratory of Biological Psychology, KU Leuven;
Laboratory of Biological Psychology, KU Leuven.
J Vis Exp. 2018 Jan 25(131):57029. doi: 10.3791/57029.
Olfactory recognition deficits are suggested to be able to serve as clinical marker to differentiate Alzheimer's disease (AD) subjects from healthy aging groups. For example, olfactory dysfunction in AD can present as impairment in olfactory recognition, emerging during early stages of the disease and worsening while the disease progresses. The social transmission of food preferences (STFP) task is based on a rudimentary form of communication between rodents concerning distant foods dependent on the transmission of olfactory cues. Healthy wild-type mice would prefer to eat a novel, flavored food that was previously cued by a conspecific, and this food preference would be hampered in transgenic AD mice, such as the APP/PS1 model. Indeed, a strong preference for the cued food in C57Bl6/J mice of 3 months of age was found, and this was reduced in 3 months old transgenic APP/PS1 mice. In summary, STFP task could be a powerful measure to be integrated in present subclinical detection assays of AD.
嗅觉识别缺陷被认为可以作为区分阿尔茨海默病（AD）患者与健康老年人群体的临床标志物。例如，AD患者的嗅觉功能障碍可表现为嗅觉识别受损，在疾病早期出现，并随着疾病进展而恶化。食物偏好的社会传递（STFP）任务基于啮齿动物之间关于远距离食物的一种基本交流形式，这种交流依赖于嗅觉线索的传递。健康的野生型小鼠会更喜欢吃一种之前由同种个体提示过的新奇口味食物，而这种食物偏好在转基因AD小鼠（如APP/PS1模型）中会受到阻碍。事实上，在3个月大的C57Bl6/J小鼠中发现了对提示食物的强烈偏好，而在3个月大的转基因APP/PS1小鼠中这种偏好则降低了。总之，STFP任务可能是一种强大的检测方法，可纳入目前AD的亚临床检测试验中。
