Brain deposition of the $ beta$-amyloid protein is an early marker of Alzheimer's disease (AD). AD is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by learning and memory impairments. Here, mice (B6C3, 8 and 20 months old) transgenic for a human $ beta$-amyloid fragment were compared to normal litter mates in spatial and non-spatial learning tasks in the Morris water maze, according to standard procedures. Four measures of learning and performance were analyzed statistically: latency, total distance swam, mean distance to a platform, and number of trials correct in reaching a platform. Transgenic mice were impaired relative to their litter mates in spatial learning and performed better in the non-spatial task than in the spatial task in the first three measures. An age effect for transgenics was observed in the total distance measure. The results suggest that expression of the human $ beta$-amyloid protein may produce a selective learning deficit in mice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.68139 |
| Date | January 1994 |
| Creators | Tirado Santiago, Giovanni |
| Contributors | Shapiro, Matthew Lewis (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Psychology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001420183, proquestno: AAIMM94395, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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