Age differences in path learning: The role of interference in updating spatial information

Spatial orientation is an essential ability, which has shown to decline with aging. Although several researches have focused on the different orientation behaviors and perspectives, fewof them have examined the acquisition of multiple paths at the same time. The current study was designed with the intention of investigating age differences in multiple view learning, as well as understanding the difficulty in updating spatial information. Twenty young people, 20 adults and 20 older adults learnt three paths which started and ended from different points of view in the same virtual environment. Results had shown worse performance of the older adults, although all age groups worsened in the last path. These results showed a severe impact on navigation in aging, and were discussed within aging and spatial cognition domain

Astrocytic plasticity as a possible mediator of the cognitive improvements after environmental enrichment in aged rats

Currently, little is known about the effect of environmental enrichment (EE) on astrocytic plasticity, especially during aging. Given the newly discovered role of the astrocytes in regulating the synaptic transmission and thereby, the cognitive functions, we aimed to study the impact of EE on the performance in a spatial memory task and on the number and morphology of GFAP immunopositive cells in the dorsal hippocampus. After two months of EE (3. h/per day), the animals were tested in the Radial-Arm Water Maze (RAWM) for four days, with six daily trials. Next, we analyzed the changes in the GFAP immunopositive cells in CA1, CA3 and Dentate Gyrus (DG). Behavioral results showed that, even in advanced ages, EE improved the performance in a spatial memory task. Also, we found that aged rats submitted to EE had more GFAP immunopositive cells in the DG and more complex astrocytes, revealed by Sholl analysis, in all hippocampal subfields with respect to the other experimental conditions. Interestingly, the learning of a spatial memory task produced more morphological complexity and higher levels of GFAP immunopositive cells with regard to a standard control group, but not at the same level of the enriched groups. Thus, it is possible that the plastic changes found in the hippocampal astrocytes after EE are involved in a brain reserve to cope with age-related cognitive impairments. © 2014 Elsevier Inc