Novel Odor Recognition and Odor Habituation in Young Rats

Abstract

The study investigated the duration of an odor memory in weanling rats compared to adults using a modified version of the Novel Object Recognition (NOR) task. To acquire familiarity or habituation to an odor, subjects were exposed to one extract – vanilla or almond – over an acquisition period of five consecutive 2 min trials with 5 min intertrial intervals. To test for retention of the odor memory, the rats were then presented with both the familiar and a novel extract either 5 min, 3 h, or 24 h after the last encoding trial. Both ages habituated quickly to the sample odor. Weanlings exhibited the highest novelty preference after 5 min retention. Adults investigated the novel odor more than weanlings when tested 24 h after acquisition. Age of subject at test influences memory retention, encoding speed, and object preferences.