Department of pharmaceutical chemistry, faculty of pharmaceutical chemistry, pharmaceutical sciences branch, Islamic Azad University (IUAPS), Tehran, Iran.
School of medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Physiol Behav. 2022 Feb 1;244:113652. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2021.113652. Epub 2021 Nov 18.
Memory is defined as the ability to store, maintain and retrieve information. Learning is the acquisition of information that changes behavior and memory. Stress, dementia, head trauma, amnesia, Alzheimer's, Huntington, Parkinson's, Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome (WKS) may be mentioned among the diseases in which memory and learning are affected. The task of understanding deficits in memory and learning in humans is daunting due to the complexity of neural and cognitive mechanisms in the nervous system. This job is made more difficult for clinicians and researchers by the fact that many techniques used to research memory are not ethically acceptable or technically feasible for use in humans. Thus, animal models have been necessary alternative for studying normal and disordered learning and memory. This review attempts to bridge these domains to allow biomedical researchers to have a firm grasp of "memory" and "learning" as constructs in humans whereby they may then select the proper animal cognitive test.
Various tests (open field habituation test, Y-maze test, passive avoidance test, step-down inhibitory avoidance test, active avoidance test, 8-arms radial maze test, Morris water maze test, radial arm water maze, novel object recognition test and gait function test) have been designed to evaluate different kinds of memory. Each of these tests has their strengths and limits. Abnormal results obtained using these tasks in non-human animals indicate malfunctions in memory which may be due to several physiological and psychological diseases of nervous system. Further studies by using the discussed tests can be very beneficial for achieving a therapeutic answer to these diseases.
记忆被定义为存储、保持和检索信息的能力。学习是获取信息的过程，它可以改变行为和记忆。在记忆和学习受到影响的疾病中，可能会提到记忆、学习、压力、痴呆、头部创伤、遗忘症、阿尔茨海默病、亨廷顿病、帕金森病、韦尼克-科萨科夫综合征（WKS）等。由于神经系统中神经和认知机制的复杂性，理解人类记忆和学习缺陷的任务是艰巨的。对于临床医生和研究人员来说，许多用于研究记忆的技术在伦理上不可接受或在技术上无法在人类中使用，这使得他们的工作更加困难。因此，动物模型是研究正常和异常学习和记忆的必要替代方法。本综述试图弥合这些领域的差距，使生物医学研究人员能够牢固掌握人类的“记忆”和“学习”这两个概念，从而选择合适的动物认知测试。
已经设计了各种测试（旷场习惯化测试、Y 迷宫测试、被动回避测试、下台阶抑制回避测试、主动回避测试、8 臂放射状迷宫测试、Morris 水迷宫测试、放射臂水迷宫测试、新物体识别测试和步态功能测试）来评估不同类型的记忆。这些测试中的每一种都有其优点和局限性。在非人类动物中使用这些任务获得的异常结果表明记忆功能障碍，这可能是由于神经系统的几种生理和心理疾病引起的。进一步使用所讨论的测试进行研究对于为这些疾病提供治疗方法非常有益。
