VACCINE

Physiology & Behavior • May 1973
Alterations in short-term retention,
conditioned avoidance response acquisition and
motivation following aluminum induced
neurofibrillary degeneration
D.R. Crapper
Departments of Physiology and Medicine
Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto
Toronto, Canada
A.J. Dalton
Department of Psychology
Mental Retardation Centre, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
Aluminum chloride induced neurofibrillary degeneration may provide a useful
model for the study of a human dementia process. This possibility was assessed
in cats trained to perform on a delayed-response task, a conditioned avoidance
task, visual and temporal discrimination tasks and a motivational task involving
rewarding intracranial electrical stimulation. After an initial asymptomatic
period short term retention and acquisition of a conditioned avoidance response
were selectively impaired. The associated ultrastructural abnormalities plausibly
implicate the cytoplasmic streaming mechanism in the cellular substrate for some
retention and acquisition phenomena.
“Aluminum chloride induced
neurofibrillary degeneration
may provide a useful model for the
study of a human dementia process.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0031938473900632