Dissertation

Prospective memory in the rat

Wilson, Arlington George

2012

Overview

Prospective memory refers to the ability to plan a future action that one initially inactivates, but then reactivates and completes at a later, more appropriate time. People harness the occurrence of internal (time) and external (event) cues, separately and in conjunction, to determine when this memory should be reactivated. Likewise, they selectively use the most valid cue among all that are available to determine when to reactivate the memory, and can alter the time they anticipate completing the plan if their expectations of the future environment are not realized. In three separate studies, rats were shown to not only possess prospective memory, but to also use time and event cues, and respond adaptively with some degree of flexibility when tested in novel conditions, similar to people. The rodents in these studies disengaged from an on-going task when their expectation of a more rewarding future opportunity was maximal. This decline in on-going task accuracy is a hallmark finding in the literature, and denotes, by proxy, the reallocating of attentional resources towards the reactivation and maintenance of the prospective memory. Development of this rodent model will aid in the identification of the neural mechanism underlying prospective memory, which is implicated in neurological diseases.

• Publisher: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses
• Subject: Psychobiology
• ISBN: 9781267911391, 1267911395