P1-102: Evaluation of species-typical behavior, learning and memory in a single transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Transgenic mouse models are important for the study of genetic, neural and behavioral deficits found in Alzheimer's disease. We evaluated the behavior of the single transgenic Alzheimer's mouse strain B6.Cg-Tg(PDGFB-APPSwInd)20Lms/1J (JAX # 004661) and their wildtype littermate controls in tests of anxiety (marble burying, open field), species-typical behaviors (nest building), and learning and memory (novel object recognition/location, Morris water maze, conditioned odor preference) at 8, 12 and 16 months of age. There was no difference in the number of marbles buried in the marble-burying test at 8 or 12 months of age. At 8 months of age, the wildtype mice were more active in the open field than the transgenic mice, whereas at 12 months of age the transgenic mice spent more time in the center. There was a trend for transgenic mice to build poorer nests than their wildtype controls. There was no significant difference in learning and memory in the novel object location/recognition task, although the transgenic mice explored the objects longer than wildtype mice at 8 months of age. Transgenic mice performed worse than wildtype in latency to find the platform in the Morris water maze at 8 months of age and spent less time in the correct quadrant during the probe trial, indicating poorer memory. There was no difference in latency to the platform at 12 months of age, but transgenic mice still spent less time in the correct quadrant during the probe trial than wildtype mice. There was no difference in learning or remembering the odors in the conditioned odor preference test at 8 or 12 months of age. It appears that the B6.Cg-Tg(PDGFB-APPSwInd)20Lms/1J mice have deficits in spatial memory, as demonstrated by poor performance in the probe trial of the Morris water maze, but no deficits in olfactory memory or species-typical behavior at the ages tested.