ePoster

Memory matters: Cognitive decline in ischemic stroke and Alzheimer's disease

Robin Gens, Sylvie De Raedt, Engelborghs Sebastiaan, Ron Kooijman, Dimitri De Bundel
FENS Forum 2024(2024)
Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Conference

FENS Forum 2024

Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, Vienna, Austria

Resources

Authors & Affiliations

Robin Gens, Sylvie De Raedt, Engelborghs Sebastiaan, Ron Kooijman, Dimitri De Bundel

Abstract

Ischemic stroke (IS) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) are debilitating neurological disorders marked by functional and cognitive deficits, sharing underlying pathological mechanisms. Recent research highlights the involvement of neurogenesis in both conditions, with alterations in neurogenesis linked to cognitive dysfunction. In our study, we aimed to investigate cognitive decline in a combined IS/AD model. To this end, IS was induced by permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion (pMCAO) in 4-months-old male and female 3xTg-AD vs wild-type (WT) mice. Our results revealed comparable sensorimotor recovery and infarct size between WT and 3xTg-AD mice, indicating no exacerbation of stroke severity in 4-months-old 3xTg-AD mice. To evaluate hippocampus-dependent memory function, mice were subjected to contextual fear conditioning prior to pMCAO. At 8 weeks after pMCAO, cognitive performance was evaluated through a fear memory retrieval test and a novel object location test. We observed a significant impairment in long-term contextual fear memory retrieval in female but not in male 3xTg-AD vs WT mice. However, no clear effect of pMCAO on long-term contextual fear memory retrieval was observed. Moreover, pMCAO did not seem to worsen contextual fear memory retrieval in 3xTg-AD mice. We observed a trend towards impaired object location memory in 3xTg-AD vs WT mice. In WT mice, there was a trend towards worse object location memory after pMCAO. Taken together, our results do not confirm an aggravation of hippocampus-dependent memory function in a combined IS/AD model within the constraints of floor effects in the used memory paradigms.

Unique ID: fens-24/memory-matters-cognitive-decline-ischemic-7415bb34