Award details

Episodic memory and memory for what where and when in the rat.

Reference	BB/D008158/1
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Professor Madeline Eacott
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Alexander Easton
Institution	Durham University
Department	Psychology
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	70,688
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	02/10/2006
End date	01/04/2008
Duration	18 months

Abstract

Episodic-like memory in non-human animals is an area of great current interest. While it has been claimed by some that episodic-like memory is unique to humans, others have claimed that it may be limited to a select number of highly developed animals and birds. In contrast, recent work from our laboratory has claimed that rats can demonstrate episodic-like memory in a one-trial test of what-where-which developed in our laboratory. Moreover, we have demonstrated that such memory is selectively impaired by lesions of the fornix. We have argued that our task is a development of the widely influential what-where-when model of episodic-like memory which has been used with success with corvids by Clayton and colleagues, but to date has proved difficult to use with rats and other laboratory animals. Although we have argued that the 'when' aspect of what-where-when is not critical to episodic-like memory and should be replaced by the broader concept 'which', this is not yet universally accepted. In order to determine the strength (or otherwise) of our position, we aim to develop a what-where-when task for use with rats. Consequently, the current proposal aims to develop a demonstration of episodic-like memory in the rat, incorporating memory for what, where and when. The task is a development of the preference-based technique developed in our laboratory and already successfully used with rats in the what-where-which task. Here we aim to develop it further to incorporate a temporal dimension to test what-where-when memory in the rat. Success will allow us in the future to compare what-where-when with what-where-which memory, in order to further theoretical understanding of the nature of episodic-like memory and its neural basis.

Summary

Episodic memory is memory for personally experienced events. It is the type of memory which allows you to remember what you did last week or what you had for breakfast this morning. Episodic memory can be lost in people after brain damage, in some diseases such as Alzheimer's disease as well as in normal, elderly people. In order to understand how this type of memory works, and ultimately to help people overcome such problems, it would be invaluable to be able to be able to study episodic memory in rats. However, you cannot simply ask a rat what it had for breakfast this morning! Although there are a number of useful tests of some sorts of memory in rats, finding a task which tests memory which is similar to episodic memory in the rat has proved difficult. In this project, we will attempt to develop such a task for use with rats. Our approach is based on the idea that people's memory for an event (such as their breakfast) involves memory for things, places and the time at which the event was experienced. For example, when recalling your breakfast this morning, you recall not only the breakfast cereal, but where you were and the fact that it was this morning (not yesterday morning). In this project, we investigate the ability of rats to recall what the saw, where they saw it and when. To do this we let rats find several objects hidden in a maze. Rats have a natural tendency to seek out things they haven't seen recently, so to test their memory for what they saw and when, we then expose them to one of the objects until they become very bored with it. We know that they will then want to avoid seeing this object again, and would prefer to explore something else. But can they remember where to find the unfamiliar object in the maze? By testing their ability to do so, we can test their memory for what they saw, where and when. By doing so we can provide a way of investigating episodic memory in rats, which will help to understand episodic memory in humans better, and ultimately lead to ways of helping those with poor memory due to disease or the ageing process.

Committee	Closed Committee - Animal Sciences (AS)
Research Topics	Neuroscience and Behaviour
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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