Publications [#52173] of Christina L Williams
Journal Articles
- Macdonald CJ, Cheng RK, Williams CL, Meck WH. (2006). Combined organizational and activational effects of short and long photoperiods on spatial and temporal memory in rats.. Behav Processes., Aug 7; [Epub ahead of print].
(last updated on 2006/12/23)Abstract:
The present study examined the effects of photoperiod on spatial and temporal memory in adult Sprague-Dawley rats that were conceived and reared in different day lengths, i.e., short day (SD-8:16 light/dark) and long day (LD-16:8 light/dark). Both male and female LD rats demonstrated increased spatial memory capacity as evidenced by a lower number of choices to criterion in a 12-arm radial maze task relative to the performance of SD rats. SD rats also demonstrated a distortion in the content of temporal memory as evidenced by a proportional rightward shift in the 20 and 60s temporal criteria trained using the peak-interval procedure that is consistent with reduced cholinergic function. The conclusion is that both spatial and temporal memory are sensitive to photoperiod variation in laboratory rats in a manner similar to that previously observed for reproductive behaviour.