Learning-Induced Survival of New Neurons Depends on the Cognitive Status of Aged Rats

By Elodie Drapeau, M. Montaron, S. Aguerre, D. Abrous. 2007

122 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Aging is accompanied by an alteration of spatial memory, which has been related to an alteration in hippocampal plasticity. Within the dentate gyrus, new neurons are generated throughout the entire life of an individual. This neurogenesis seems to play a role in hippocampal-mediated learning and learning-induced changes in neurogenesis have been proposed to be involved in memory. However, in aged rats, little is known on the influence of learning on the early development of the adult-born neurons and on the possible involvement of learning-induced changes in neurogenesis in age-related memory deficits. To address this issue, we took advantage of the existence of spontaneous individual differences for performances observed in aged subjects in the water maze. In this task, learning can be divided into two phases, an early phase during which performances quickly improve, and a late phase during which asymptotic levels of performances are reached. We show that the influence of spatial learning on the survival of the newly born cells depends on their birth date and the memory abilities of the aged rats. In aged rats with preserved spatial memory, learning increases the survival of cells generated before learning whereas it decreases survival of cells produced during the early phase of learning. These results highlight the importance of learning-induced changes in adult-born cell survival in memory. Furthermore, they provide new insights on the possible neural mechanisms of aging of cognitive functions and show that an alteration to the steps leading to neurogenesis may be involved in the determination of individual memory abilities.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Developmental Neuroscience, Neurology

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Citations in the corpus

Adult Neurogenesis in the Mammalian Brain: Significant Answers and Significant Questions (2011, background): “Subjecting animals to specific learning paradigms mostly regulates the survival of new neurons, and effects depend on the timing of cell birth and learning phases, which can be either positive or negative (Drapeau et al., 2007; Mouret et al., 2008).”
Modification of hippocampal circuitry by adult neurogenesis (2012, background): “For instance, enriched physical environment affects neurogenesis by enhancing the survival of newborn neurons (Leuner et al., 2006; Drapeau et al., 2007; Sisti et al., 2007).”
Mechanisms and functional implications of adult neurogenesis. (2008, unknown): “Similarly, learning appears to promote the survival of newborn neurons only in cognitively unimpaired aged rats (Drapeau et al., 2007).”
Evidence for a cytokine model of cognitive function. (2009, background): “There is also considerable evidence to suggest that adult neurogenesis plays an important role in memory consolidation, and hippocampal-dependent learning (Bruel-Jungerman et al., 2006, 2007a,b; Drapeau et al., 2007; Saxe et al., 2006; Snyder et al., 2001).”