Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Dysfunction in a Mouse Model of Alzheimer's Disease

Sensitive and translational tasks that efficiently and accurately assess cognitive function during pre-clinical trials would be useful in developing novel treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients. The Bussey-Saksida touchscreens employ various tasks similar to those used in humans to effectively evaluate high-level cognitive and executive functions in mice. This face validity provides the best chance of successful cognitive translation across species. In our study, donepezil had minor effects on the performance of 5xFAD mice in the 5-CSRTT, a touchscreen task evaluating attention. Additionally, 5xFAD mice do not demonstrate impairments in the PVD task, which assesses visual discrimination/ cognitive flexibility. However, the parameters recorded by the touchscreen apparatus found latency differences in task response and reward collection – which led us to uncover severe gait impairments in old 5xFAD mice. In summary, our findings suggest that the 5xFAD mouse model can be used as an animal model of non-cognitive function in AD.

Name thesis:degree_name

M Sc

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Neuroscience

Grantor dc:publisher

The University of Western Ontario

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Lee, Wai-Jane V

Advisors dc:contributor.advisor

• Marco Prado
• Vania Prado

• Alzheimer's Disease
• 5xFAD
• Visual Discrimination and Cognitive Flexibility
• Attention
• Gait
• Donepezil

Language dc:language.iso

en_ca

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14721/34715

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uwo.scholaris.ca:20.500.14721/34715