Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA.
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2022 Jul;141:105750. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105750. Epub 2022 Mar 25.
Spatial memory is critical for many tasks necessary for survival (i.e., locating mates and food resources). The two mammalian nonapeptides arginine vasopressin (AVP) and oxytocin (OT) are mechanistically important in modulating memory ability, albeit in contrasting ways. In general, AVP facilitates memory consolidation and retrieval while OT is an amnesic. Although AVP and OT are known to have these memory effects, past work has focused on their impact in social memory with little research on their effects on spatial memory. In this experiment, we tested the impact of AVP and OT on spatial memory as determined by performance in the Morris water maze (MWM). We administered doses of AVP, OT, or saline (a control) intranasally to male prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster), a species whose spatial memory is hypothesized to impact their mating tactics. We also investigated if acute doses (given immediately prior to the memory trial in the MWM) and chronic doses (given daily during adolescence) had differing impacts on spatial cognition. We found that chronic intranasal administration of AVP during post-wean development improved spatial memory performance. In contrast, both chronic and acute administration of OT and acute administration of AVP had no impact on spatial memory. These results together suggest that 1) chronic exposure to AVP has organizational effects on spatial memory in the prairie vole, and 2) acute administration of nonapeptides does not impact the retrieval of spatial memories.
空间记忆对于许多生存所需的任务至关重要（例如，寻找配偶和食物资源）。两种哺乳动物神经肽精氨酸加压素（AVP）和催产素（OT）在调节记忆能力方面具有重要的机制作用，尽管作用方式相反。一般来说，AVP 促进记忆的巩固和提取，而 OT 则是健忘的。尽管已知 AVP 和 OT 具有这些记忆效应，但过去的工作主要集中在它们对社会记忆的影响上，而对它们对空间记忆的影响研究甚少。在这项实验中，我们通过在 Morris 水迷宫（MWM）中的表现测试了 AVP 和 OT 对空间记忆的影响。我们通过鼻腔给予雄性草原田鼠（Microtus ochrogaster）AVP、OT 或盐水（对照），草原田鼠的空间记忆被假设会影响它们的交配策略。我们还研究了急性剂量（在 MWM 中的记忆试验之前立即给予）和慢性剂量（在青春期期间每天给予）对空间认知是否有不同的影响。我们发现，在断奶后发育期间慢性鼻腔给予 AVP 可改善空间记忆表现。相比之下，OT 的慢性和急性给药以及 AVP 的急性给药均对空间记忆没有影响。这些结果共同表明，1）AVP 的慢性暴露对草原田鼠的空间记忆具有组织作用，2）神经肽的急性给药不会影响空间记忆的检索。
