Bierley R A, Rixen G J, Tröster A I, Beatty W W
Behav Neural Biol. 1986 Mar;45(2):223-9. doi: 10.1016/s0163-1047(86)90794-6.
Aged rats with extensive prior training on the radial maze retain the capacity for accurate spatial working memory (WM) for at least 3 months without practice. To investigate the temporal limits of this influence of prior experience we compared the reacquisition of spatial WM by a group of experienced 21.5-month-old rats to the original acquisition by naive 3-month-old rats. The aged rats had received 225 radial maze tests between 3 and 11 months of age. Despite 10 months without practice the old rats rapidly reacquired critical performance. Their reacquisition was markedly superior to original learning by the young rats, even when delays as long as 5 h were imposed between the rats' fourth and fifth choices during the daily tests in the eight-arm maze. Additional tests showed that neither young nor old rats employed a response strategy to maintain accurate spatial WM performance. Experience clearly confers long-lived protection against the otherwise deleterious effects of aging on spatial WM, but the mechanism by which this influence arises is unknown.
在放射状迷宫上接受过广泛前期训练的老年大鼠，即使没有练习，也能保持至少3个月的准确空间工作记忆（WM）能力。为了研究这种前期经验影响的时间限制，我们将一组有经验的21.5月龄大鼠重新获得空间WM的情况与未接触过的3月龄幼鼠最初获得空间WM的情况进行了比较。这些老年大鼠在3至11月龄期间接受了225次放射状迷宫测试。尽管有10个月没有练习，但老年大鼠仍迅速重新获得了关键表现。它们的重新获得明显优于幼鼠的最初学习，即使在八臂迷宫的每日测试中，大鼠的第四次和第五次选择之间设置长达5小时的延迟也是如此。额外的测试表明，幼鼠和老年大鼠都没有采用反应策略来维持准确的空间WM表现。经验显然能长期保护机体免受衰老对空间WM的有害影响，但这种影响产生的机制尚不清楚。
