Urocanic acid facilitates acquisition of object recognition memory in mice

Le Wang, Yinna Tan, Hao Wang, Xu-Dong Yu, Yanxin Mo, James Reilly, Zhiming He*, Xinhua Shu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
90 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Trans-urocanic acid (UCA), an isomer of cis-UCA that is mainly located in the skin, has recently been reported to have a role in short-term working memory and in the consolidation, reconsolidation and retrieval of long-term memory. However, its effect on memory acquisition remains unclear. In the present study, the effect of UCA on short-term and long-term memory acquisition in mice was investigated using novel object recognition (NOR) and object location recognition (OLR) protocols that each involved three stages: habituation, sampling and testing. UCA was intraperitoneally injected 0.5 h pre-sampling, and the discrimination index during subsequent testing was determined in NOR and OLR tasks. The results showed that 10 mg/kg UCA significantly facilitated short-term and long-term memory acquisition in both types of tasks. Furthermore, 30 mg/kg UCA significantly facilitated long-term memory acquisition in the NOR task and tended to facilitate long-term memory acquisition in the OLR tasks but did not facilitate short-term memory acquisition in either task. Additionally, the enhancing role of UCA on memory acquisition was not dependent on changes of nonspecific responses, e.g. exploratory behavior and locomotor activity. The current study suggests that UCA facilitates short-term and long-term recognition memory acquisition, which further extends the functional role of UCA in the brain function.
Original languageEnglish
Article number114201
Number of pages5
JournalPhysiology and Behavior
Volume266
Early online date16 Apr 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jul 2023

Keywords

  • urocanic acid
  • memory acquisition
  • long-term memory
  • short-term memory
  • location recognition
  • object recognition

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Behavioral Neuroscience

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