Elements of episodic-like memory in animal models
Abstract
Representations of unique events from one's past constitute the content of episodic memories. A number of studies with non-human animals have revealed that animals remember specific episodes from their past (referred to as episodic-like memory). The development of animal models of memory holds enormous potential for gaining insight into the biological bases of human memory. Specifically, given the extensive knowledge of the rodent brain, the development of rodent models of episodic memory would open new opportunities to explore the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, neurophysiological, and molecular mechanisms of memory. Development of such animal models holds enormous potential for studying functional changes in episodic memory in animal models of Alzheimer's disease, amnesia, and other human memory pathologies. This article reviews several approaches that have been used to assess episodic-like memory in animals. The approaches reviewed include the discrimination of what, where, and when in a radial arm maze, dissociation of recollection and familiarity, object recognition, binding, unexpected questions, and anticipation of a reproductive state. The diversity of approaches may promote the development of converging lines of evidence on the difficult problem of assessing episodic-like memory in animals.
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The unexpected question experiment by Zentall et al. (2001) only deals with short-time delays between encoding and question, whereas episodic memory is defined as a long-term memory system.
“However, as pointed out by Crystal (2009), episodic memory is defined as a long-term memory system and the unexpected question experiment carried out by Zentall et al. (2001) only deals with short-time delays between the encoding event and the experimental question.”
From Keeping track of time: evidence for episodic-like memory in great apes (2010) · cites this paper as Crystal 2009
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- Authors
- Crystal, J. D.
- Affiliations
- University of Georgia (US)
- Corresponding author
- Crystal, Jonathon D.
- ORCID
- Crystal, Jonathon D.
- Venue
- Behavioural Processes
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2009-03
- Volume
- 80
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 269-277
- ISSN
- 0376-6357 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1970883095
- Cited by
- 86
- References
- 65
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 5 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 0.56
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Behavioural Processes (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Tekes
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory and Neural Mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Functions and Memory
- Keywords
- episodic-like memory, animal models of memory, memory assessment, radial maze, object recognition, binding, Alzheimer's disease, amnesia
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Bees, Cognition, Arvicolinae, Mental Recall, Maze Learning, Recognition, Psychology, Models, Animal, Rats
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