SIMULTANEOUS TEMPORAL PROCESSING IS SENSITIVE TO PRENATAL CHOLINE AVAILABILITY IN MATURE AND AGED RATS

RATS were trained at 2-4 months and at 24-26 months of age on a peak-i nterval timing procedure in which auditory and visual stimuli signaled two different fixed-interval schedules of reinforcement (15 and 30 s) that were presented simultaneously in a hierarchical fashion. Compare d with control rats, increases in the probability of attention to the 15 s signal were observed for both the choline-supplemented and the ch oline-deficient rats. In contrast, an increase in attention to the 30 s signal was only observed for the choline-supplemented rats, whereas choline-deficient rats exhibited a decrease in attention that increase d with age. Proportional rightward shifts in the remembered times of r einforcement emerged for the 24-26-month-old rats in the choline-defic ient and control groups, but not in the choline-supplemented group. Th ese results indicate that prenatal choline supplementation facilitates cognitive function across the lifespan, whereas prenatal choline defi ciency impairs divided attention and accelerates age-related declines in temporal processing.