Effects of ageing on allocentric and egocentric spatial strategies in the Wistar rat

This study was designed to assess the effect of ageing on spatial (allocent ric and egocentric) strategies in rats. Two different tasks were designed f or this purpose: one involving Morris' circular pool (distal extramaze cues ) and another using the T water maze (egocentric cues). In the first task, the aged rats showed some difficulty in acquiring allocentric spatial learn ing skills. After increasing the number of trials in this task, there was n o significant improvement in the performance of the aged group of rats comp ared to the adult group. However, in the second spatial task (using egocent ric cues), both age groups gave a similar performance. Therefore, the effec t of ageing on spatial learning depends on the strategy required to acquire this learning. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All right reserved.