Relationship of impaired brain glucose metabolism to learning deficit in the senescence-accelerated mouse.

The relationship between brain glucose metabolism and learning deficit was examined in the senescence-accelerated-prone mouse (SAMP) 8, which has been proven to be a useful murine model of age-related behavioral disorders. SAMP8, 7 months old, exhibited marked learning impairment in the passive avoidance task, as compared with the control strain, senescence-accelerated-resistant mice (SAMR) 1. SAMP8 also exhibited a reduction in brain glucose metabolism, as indicated by a reduction in [14C]2-deoxyglucose accumulation in the brain following the intravenous injection impaired glucose metabolism correlated significantly with the learning impairment in all brain regions in SAMR1 and SAMP8. In the SAMP8, a significant correlation was observed in the posterior half of the cerebral cortex. These results suggest that the SAMP8 strain is a useful model of not only age-related behavioral disorders, but also glucose hypometabolism observed in aging and dementias.