Social housing protects against age-related working memory decline independently of physical enrichment in rats.

In this study, rats were socially housed or nonsocially housed throughout their lifespan and tested in the radial arm maze to measure working memory (WM) and reference memory longitudinally at 3 ages. In old age, exclusively, socially housed rats made significantly less WM errors than nonsocially housed rats, while reference memory errors did not differ between groups at any age. Anxiety, as assessed behaviorally and physiologically, could not account for the observed differences in WM. These data provide the first evidence that social enrichment alone can prevent age-related WM deficits in spite of the effects of practice seen in longitudinal designs. Importantly, our model will facilitate future investigations into the mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective benefits of sociability in old age. PMID: 30557770 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Neurobiology of Aging - Category: Geriatrics Authors: Tags: Neurobiol Aging Source Type: research