Bisphenol A Does Not Affect Memory Performance in Adult Male Rats

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an estrogenic endocrine disruptor used for producing polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. This study investigated the effects of oral BPA administration on memory performance, general activity, and emotionality in adult male Sprague Dawley rats using a battery of behavioral tests, including an appetite-motivated maze test (MAZE test) used to assess spatial memory performance. In addition, in order to confirm the effects of BPA on spatial memory performance, we examined whether intrahippocampal injection of BPA affects spatial memory consolidation. In the MAZE test, although oral BPA administration at 10 mg/kg significantly altered the number of entries into the incorrect area compared to those of vehicle-treated rats, male rats given BPA through either oral administration or intrahippocampal injection failed to show significant differences in latencies to reach the reward. Also, oral BPA administration did not affect fear-motivated memory performance in the step-through passive avoidance test. Oral BPA administration at 0.05 mg/kg, the lowest dose used in this study, was correlated with a decrease in locomotor activity in the open-field test, whereas oral administration at 10 mg/kg, the highest dose used in this study, was correlated with a light anxiolytic effect in the elevated plus-maze test. The present study suggests that BPA in adulthood has little effect on spatial memory performance in male rats

Cognitive effects of dopamine depletion in the context of diminished acetylcholine signaling capacity in mice

SUMMARY A subset of patients with Parkinson’s disease acquires a debilitating dementia characterized by severe cognitive impairments (i.e. Parkinson’s disease dementia; PDD). Brains from PDD patients show extensive cholinergic loss as well as dopamine (DA) depletion. We used a mutant mouse model to directly test whether combined cholinergic and DA depletion leads to a cognitive profile resembling PDD. Mice carrying heterozygous deletion of the high-affinity, hemicholinium-3-sensitive choline transporter (CHTHET) show reduced levels of acetylcholine throughout the brain. We achieved bilateral DA depletion in CHTHET and wild-type (WT) littermates via intra-striatal infusion of 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA), or used vehicle as control. Executive function and memory were evaluated using rodent versions of cognitive tasks commonly used with human subjects: the set-shifting task and spatial and novel-object recognition paradigms. Our studies revealed impaired acquisition of attentional set in the set-shifting paradigm in WT-6OHDA and CHTHET-vehicle mice that was exacerbated in the CHTHET-6OHDA mice. The object recognition test following a 24-hour delay was also impaired in CHTHET-6OHDA mice compared with all other groups. Treatment with acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors physostigmine (0.05 or 0.1 mg/kg) and donepezil (0.1 and 0.3 mg/kg) reversed the impaired object recognition of the CHTHET-6OHDA mice. Our data demonstrate an exacerbated cognitive phenotype with dual ACh and DA depletion as compared with either insult alone, with traits analogous to those observed in PDD patients. The results suggest that combined loss of DA and ACh could be sufficient for pathogenesis of specific cognitive deficits in PDD

Estradiol Alters Fos-Immunoreactivity in the Hippocampus and Dorsal Striatum during Place and Response Learning in Middle-Aged But Not Young Adult Female Rats

Estradiol administration before place and response training revealed marked effects on hippocampal and striatal Fos-immunoreactivity in middle-aged but not young adult female rats