EFFECTS OF AGING UPON RECENT MEMORY IN MICROCEBUS-MURINUS

Four young (2 to 4-year-old) and four aged (9 to 10-year-old) grey mou se lemurs (Micro-cebus murinus) were given a simple visual discriminat ion task, and a delayed response visual discrimination task with varia ble retention delay. The response to the test is a motor one, that con sists of choosing one out of lour corridors of an apparatus based upon the degree of illumination. The aged animals did not show any learnin g deficiency, and were capable of memorizing the task for several mont hs. However, they were more sensitive to the length of the delay in th e delayed response task than the young animals. It is, therefore, poss ible to argue that the memory for recent stimulus events is affected d uring aging. These results corroborate those obtained in other primate s, and demonstrate the usefulness of the grey mouse lemur as a new ani mal model for analyzing aging.