Animals were tested in a battery of Carousel maze variants with various demands for segregation of spatial information and flexibility; animals avoided an unmarked sector of either stable or rotating arena; moreover the sector could be defined in room- or arena-frame. A shortened Carousel maze battery and Morris water maze (MWM) including one- trial matching-to-place and reversal configurations was used.
Nogo-A-deficient rats were impaired in the final phases of the Carousel maze battery but their spatial working memory tested in the MWM was intact. Middle-aged and aged groups were differently affected in the battery, but deficits in young animals were observed not to be worsened with ageing. Concept of multidirectional age-related alterations in this animal model is further supported by biochemical brain changes.
Nogo-A-deficient rats may serve as an extremely useful model of neurodevelopmental deficit, which may manifest by behavioral changes accessible to phenotyping and in-depth analysis. Relevance of this approach for animal models of neuropsychiatric models will be discussed.