REFERENCE MEMORY IS AFFECTED BY TRANSIENT BILATERAL CLAMPING OF THE CAROTID ARTERIES IN RATS (BCCA)

Rats were subjected to 60 min of bilateral clamping of the carotid art eries (BCCA) in pentobarbital anaesthesia and tested in a hole board w ith 8 of the 25 holes baited with food pellets hidden in a serial orde r. All rats learned to recognize the pattern as a reference during an acquisition period at 2-14 days post surgery, i.e. reference memory. D uring the recall tests 29-37, 165-175 and 240-250 days later BCCA anim als showed a decrease in memory revealing a significant increase in re ference memory errors. The number of working memory errors, i.e. reexa mination of inspected previously baited holes, did not differ from tho se of sham operated controls. The number of pellets eaten in serial or der from hole 1 to hole 8 was significantly decreased in BCCA animals compared with controls, while the number of holes inspected by the ani mals in the two groups were the same. Thus the observed behaviour chan ges appear not to be caused by motor or motivation deficiencies.