Changes in the plastic properties of hippocampal dendritic spines underlie the attenuation of place learning in healthy aged rats

Normal aging is characterized by slight impairments in spatial memory, and the modification of some electrophysiological parameters that underlie place learning and associated reference memory. However, the morphological mechanisms underlying these impairments remain unknown. In the present study, we analyzed the spine density and the proportion of thin, mushroom, stubby, wide, branched and double spines on pyramidal neuron dendrites in the hippocampal CA1 field of young and aged rats. These parameters were assessed both before and after evaluating place learning and reference memory in the Morris water maze. Aged rats adopted an egocentric strategy to resolve the task, swimming slower and further, and taking longer to locate the sunken platform. While probe trials revealed that aged animals could recall the platform position, these animals spent more time exploring incorrect quadrants than young rats. An increase in spine density was observed after task performance in both young and aged rats, but aging provoked a decrease in the density of thin spines. In addition, there was an increase in the density of mushroom and wide spines in aged animals after task performance as compared with the untested aged counterparts. Moreover, in aged animals there were fewer thin spines and more wide spines after task performance than in the young tested animals. These findings support the view that aging attenuates but does not abolish spatial memory, a process that may be associated with plastic changes in the type of dendritic spines on aged hippocampal CA1 neurons.